Sublight Review: Download Multilingual Subtitles Automatically

Finding the right subtitles for your movies requires multiple searches on the Internet and file downloads on your computer. To spice things up a little bit, imagine the subtitles cannot be loaded into your media player due to unforeseen errors, are not synchronized, lack proper formatting, are not properly translated into the desired language, and the nightmare may go on.

Sublight is a small software utility developed to help you perform searches for subtitles on multiple online platforms at the same time and automatically download subtitles for your movies and TV series on your computer. You can double-click on any subtitle to open video in your media player and check if it’s working properly.

In order to use the program, you need to sign up or log in with your Google account. You can try the tool for thirty days and then opt for a subscription plan for €0.25/$0.28. Sublight offers support for a premium account which can be purchased with the aid of points. You can find out more about the point system on its official website.
Initial settings

A wizard-like assistant helps you go through some basic configuration settings, like selecting the preferred subtitle languages, integrating the tool in your Windows Explorer’s contextual menu for specific extensions (e.g. AVI, MKV, WMV, MP4, DIVX, MOV), and choosing between a light blue and dark gray GUI theme.
User-friendly layout

It’s easy to work with Sublight because it sports a clean and intuitive design. Multiple tabs are embedded in the main window for helping you define the search process, generate a list with seen movies, publish subtitles, download subtitles using batch processing, and configure various settings.
Search for subtitles

Looking for subtitles can be done in two ways: you can either drag and drop video files directly in the program’s interface or manually enter the title of the movie.

In case you are not sure about the title, you can flag it as incorrect. The application shows title suggestions as soon as you start typing and lets you pass the search to Google in case it does not manage to find movie titles on its online platforms.

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You are given the freedom to reduce the number of search results by giving more details about the video files, namely season, episode, and year.

Sublight shows a list with all available subtitles in different languages and provides information about the title, language, rating, number of downloads, publisher, and date when it was submitted.
Subtitle downloading and playing options

You are given the possibility to play the video files with the selected subtitle. Sublight works with the following video players: BS.Player, GOM Player, KMPlayer, Media Player Classic, MPC HomeCinema, SMPlayer, VLC media player, and Zoom player.

What’s more, you can make the application download the selected subtitle to a custom folder on your computer (optionally you can open it Notepad), give ratings, open the IMDb webpage for the current movie via your web browser, report if the subtitle is synchronized or not with the movie, filter the subtitle languages, and clear the entire fields with a single click.
Keep track of watched movies and TV series

Sublight helps you create a list with the movies and TV series that you have seen. You can add a new entry to the list by entering data about the title, season, episode, as well as date and time when the video was watched.

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You can perform searches throughout the list, sort the entries by TV series or movies, and filter the results by time (last 7 or 30 days, last 6 or 12 months). The utility is able to download cover images and displays the total number of items and approximate runtime. The list with movies can be shared with your friends based on a URL generated by the application.
Publish new subtitles

The application helps you publish new subtitles by specifying the IMDb URL that provides access to the title of the movie and adding a subtitle file (SUB, SRT, SAMI). What’s more, you can add a video file (this is optional) and carry out searches by movie title on IMDb directly from the tool’s main layout.

You can choose the subtitle language, select the movie type (Movie, Cartoon, Serial, Documentary, Other), and provide information about the release date, personal comments, and rating.
Batch downloading mode

Sublight helps you automatically download subtitles for movies located in custom folders. You can also set up directories that are monitored by the app. Once a video is added to the user-defined directories, the program automatically downloads subtitles for the new item.

Advanced settings help you make the application search for video files recursively, log the task and adjust the logging level, as well as ignore custom filename patterns.
Configuration settings

General tweaks enable you to use third-party subtitle databases, automatically add entries to the ‘Seen list’ if the video player is opened for more than 15 minutes, and open a single instance of the application.

You can set up a video player by specifying the executable file and entering custom parameters, as well as configure subtitle priority in terms of quality, language, and subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired.

When it comes to subtitle settings, you can append language to the filename, select the encoding mode, and remove subtitle formatting options (this particular option applies only to subtitles from Sublight database).

You can also choose the preferred subtitle sources and arrange them in a preferred order, namely Podnapisi.NET, Addic7ed.com, Subscene.com, OpenSubtitles.org, subdivx.com, Titlovi.com, Ondertitel.com (Dutch subtitles), Undertexter.se (Swedish subtitles), subom.net (Chinese subtitles), and subs.com.ru (Russian subtitles). The tool lets you define the plugin timeout.

Last but not least, you can make changes to the user profile and download the video poster only for movies or movies and TV series. The video posters are downloaded in the same folder as the video items.

The Good

Aside from the program’s database with subtitles, you are given the freedom to download others from online platforms. The batch processing features is really useful in case you plan to download subtitles for your entire movie collection.

The program can also be controlled via the command-line console using SublightCmd. However, you should know the command-line version can be used for downloading subtitles only from the Sublight database.

Sublight detects and downloads subtitles very quickly. Thanks to its support for diverse third-party databases, you can find subtitles for all sorts of movies. Dragging and dropping a video file in the primary panel enables an automatic search process for the suitable subtitles.

The Bad

The application offers you the option to open videos with the downloaded subtitle in one of the supported media players. Let’s say this one is BS. Player.

The thing is that BS. Player offers support for automatic subtitle downloading options from its own database, OpenSubtitles and GetSsubtitles. You can choose between several subtitle results displayed in multiple languages, set the preferred languages, and even upload subtitles. You can do all of the aforementioned tasks for free so Sublight’s downloading capabilities are undermined by BS.Player’s options.

However, there are some features that make Sublight a noteworthy tool. You can use it in case you want to work with a thorough set of third-party databases and grab subtitles using batch processing.

The Truth

The endless searching process for the right subtitles can be reduced to a couple of clicks using Sublight. Whether you are a rookie or professional user, the application provides the necessary tools to meet the requirements of both. It scores extra points for its support for various online platforms and straightforward design.