title: regex insert character into blank SRT
body: <p>I have a blank SRT file associated with a video, the timecodes have already been set in a transcription software platform (i.e. the boundaries of each caption have been set but the captions have not been written down), I have uploaded the video to youtube, and now I want to the blank SRT file to it, so someone can transcribe it using YouTube's transcription/translation platform.</p>
  <p>Blank SRT:</p>
  <pre><code>1
  00:00:01,05 --&gt; 00:00:04,64
  
  
  2
  00:00:05,02 --&gt; 00:00:07,18
  
  
  3
  00:00:07,81 --&gt; 00:00:11,03
  
  
  4
  00:00:11,04 --&gt; 00:00:15,92
  
  
  5
  00:00:16,35 --&gt; 00:00:17,11
  </code></pre>
  <p>But there is a problem, since there is no text in the captions, youtube does not recognize the timecodes, and so nothing happens when the srt is uploaded to a video in youtube.</p>
  <p>To get around this, I place a single non-alphanumeric character in the blank line beneath each time code (usually a &quot;-&quot;).</p>
  <p>SRT file with dashes:</p>
  <pre><code>1
  00:00:01,05 --&gt; 00:00:04,64
  -
  
  2
  00:00:05,02 --&gt; 00:00:07,18
  -
  
  3
  00:00:07,81 --&gt; 00:00:11,03
  -
  
  4
  00:00:11,04 --&gt; 00:00:15,92
  -
  
  5
  00:00:16,35 --&gt; 00:00:17,11
  -
  </code></pre>
  <p>This is very manual process that can take a long time. There has to be a way to use a find and replace in something like Notepad++ and simply add the dashes. I'm trying to do that using regex but running into problems.</p>
  <p>^$ correctly targets the blank lines, however if I simply replace them with a &quot;-&quot; I get:</p>
  <pre><code>1
  00:00:01,05 --&gt; 00:00:04,64
  -
  -
  2
  00:00:05,02 --&gt; 00:00:07,18
  -
  -
  </code></pre>
  <p>This is unacceptable since it breaks the syntax of the SRT, when uploading an SRT like this to youtube, it thinks the content is a single caption. Thus I need to place a dash ONLY in the first blank line, the one that is directly beneath the timecode.</p>
  <p>I cannot figure out how to ONLY select the first blank line in each pair of blank lines. Any solutions would be appreciated.</p>