• What does VSS stand for?

It is short for VisualSubSync.

• What are normal and timing mode?

In VSS, there are two modes available: the normal mode and the timing mode. Both modes have a different configurable (Edit > Preferences > HotKeys) set of hotkeys. In timing mode you can change (Edit > Preferences > Mouse) the behavior of the mouse to use a SubStation Alpha like mouse mode: Left/right mouse button set start/stop time. You can also use the space key to create or modify (Edit > Preferences > General > Misc) subtitles with just one key by pressing it when subtitle start, then releasing it when subtitle stop.

• What is VSFilter/VobSub?

It's a DirectShow filter (a sort of plugin) that makes it possible to show subtitles when you playback a video file, if you use a compatible player like Windows Media Player or any of a lot of other players. You can download VSFilter here.

• How do I create a karaoke?

The easiest way is to first do the timing for the lyrics, sentence by sentence. Then you separate each syllable by the slash character: '/'. Then select the subtitle, right click on it and choose Create Karaoke. Finally adjust the timing for each syllable starting from the first to the last one. See the links below for a tutorial on karaoke creation.

• My karaoke doesn't move in VSFilter, the sentence is just half filled, why?

You need to modify VSFilter configuration, double click on the arrow in the taskbar, go to the Misc tab and uncheck Pre-buffer subpicture.

• What is the Text Pipe?

See this tutorial for more information.

• How can I help the project?

You can write some new tutorials/documentation, translate or help to improve the existing ones. Some flash animated tutorial could be nice also.
You can write and share some of your javascript plugins.

• I'm using Linux, how can I run VSS?

Unfortunately VSS is not made to be run on operating system other than Windows. Maybe it would work with Wine but I've not tried it myself.
A better alternative is to use the native application called Subtitle Editor. It has lot's of similar feature with a nice, clean and simple GUI.

• How can I install VSS without using the installer? what about using a simple zip file?

You can extract the content of the installer by using 7-zip which is freely available here.

• Does VSS support Unicode?

Yes, here is a sample file mixing several langages.

• VSS display an incomplete audio graph. What's going on?

This problem usually happen on Windows 7 (and later) when decoding AAC.
It's seems there is a limitation in the Microsoft audio decoder when used with third party program like VSS.
To fix the problem you can use Win7DSFilterTweaker to set another audio decoder (ffdshow) as the preferred decoder.

• Some version of Internet Explorer wrongly report support for deflate html page compression, so disable it if you use IE and the network mode.
• When extracting WAV make sure you have enough disk space because there is no checking yet.
• Showing still image of the video doesn't always works with mpeg file.