Media view & timing

Audio, video, and subtitle files carry a second view alongside the usual cell list: a timeline, for lining your translation up against the original recording. Open it from the toolbar’s Text | Media tabs, or the sidebar’s Media entry (it reads Audio for audio-only files).

The two tracks

The timeline stacks the original recording (Source audio) above your translation's clips (Target audio).

The timeline stacks up to four rows:

• Source audio: the original recording, exactly as imported. It’s fixed; you can’t move or trim it.
• Target audio: your translation’s clips, whether recorded takes or generated voice. This is the track you edit.
• Subtitles: the file’s subtitle cues, shown when the file has them.
• Untimed: a parking strip that only appears when a clip has no timecode yet.

On a target clip, drag its body to move it, or drag either edge to trim it (trimming only cuts the ends; it never changes the audio’s speed). A clip can’t be dragged past a neighboring clip’s start, so clips stay in order, and the shortest a clip can be is 0.2 seconds. A Snap to neighboring edges toggle, when on, magnets a clip’s edges to the clips beside it as you drag.

Timing modes: Original’s timing vs. Free timing

A file’s timing mode decides how your translation’s length is treated against the original recording:

• Original’s timing: the translation is fitted to the original recording’s timing. If a target clip overlaps a neighbor, it’s flagged in red naming which side and by how much (for example “Overlaps the next dub, −1.8s”); a clip that runs past its section without colliding gets a milder amber warning (“Runs 2.3s past the section”).
• Free timing: verses are laid end to end instead, each taking as much room as its own length needs. Nothing overlaps and nothing “runs long,” so the overlap and past-section warnings don’t apply in this mode.

Switching between the two doesn’t touch your recordings or their timing data: it’s safe to try either mode and switch back. The mode is set per file, from a control in the timeline toolbar, and changing it needs Maintainer access; everyone else sees the current mode as a read-only label.

The timing-mode control sits at the top left of the timeline.

Linking a video

Link video (Contributor access or above) attaches a video to a file so it plays alongside the timeline. Video playback follows the original recording’s timing, which Free timing mode no longer tracks, so Aquilla warns you at the point the two would conflict: linking a video while a file is in Free timing warns “This file uses Free timing, the video won’t be shown,” and switching a file that already has a linked video into Free timing warns “Switch to Free timing and hide the video?” Either way, the switch itself is lossless: nothing about the video or your recordings is lost, only its on-screen playback is affected.

Recording your translation

Choose Record audio on a clip to open the recorder. Press Start to begin, Stop to end the take, then Retake to try again or Save to keep it. A Generate TTS button next to it produces a spoken take with the project’s voice engine instead, useful for a quick placeholder or when recording isn’t practical.

Every attempt is kept, not just your last one: a Takes strip lists each one by name (Take 1, Take 2, and so on), with controls to preview, rename, or delete any of them. A denoised copy of a take is labeled Cleaned, and you can revert to the original audio at any time.

Formats and limits

Importing an audio or video file is capped at 95 MB. Your own recordings upload in a compressed format; generated voices upload compressed too but keep an original-quality copy alongside it, and a playback-quality toggle lets you choose between the smaller compressed version and the original when listening back.

Who can do what

Recording, trimming, moving clips, and linking a video all need Contributor access or above. Changing a file’s timing mode needs Maintainer access. Below Contributor, the timeline is read-only: you can watch and listen, but not edit.