Recently I discovered very useful tool for subtitle authors.
It is called
kerensky-sas and enables users to create
subtitle templates in .srt format from video files (.avi file for example).
It takes approximately 6-10 minutes to create subtitle template for 45 minute video file (for example one episode of tv serie).
Generated template does not contain spoken dialogs. It contains only time references and placeholders which are filled by translator.
kerensky-sas screenshot:
Example of generated subtitle template:
Tool requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
(included in Windows 7) and can be freely downloaded from Google Code.