Subtitling and Closed Captions

We welcome this, particularly if your client is already happy with the style of your translations, but translating for subtitles requires specialist experience and training. To guide you through the process, we’ll first create a time-coded subtitle document template, for your translation team to work from, along with detailed instructions.

Yes, we can give you the subtitles back in the .SBV format required for YouTube. This is also a great way to make your video content searchable in the Google search engine.

Subtitles that are burnt in are unable to be turned off. They stay on permanently.

It’s totally up to you. We can deliver the subtitles in a text file, or in over 30 subtitle document formats. We can burn-in the subtitles to any video file format, or create a DVD or Blu-Ray master with language selection menu and subtitle on/off feature. Or we can deliver the subtitles as an alpha channel to drop into your own video edit.

We can subtitle into all file formats, and in any size required.
Common file formats include: .mov, .flv, .mp4, .wmv, .mpg, and .avi.

We can deliver subtitles in over 30 subtitle document formats including: .stl / .pac / .scc / .sif / .rtf / .das / .dar / .mtl / .cip / .sbv / .vtt / .usf / .fdx / .html / .fpc / .aqt / .asc / .ass / .dat / .dks / .js / .jss / .lrc / .mpl / .ovr / .pan / .pjs / .rt / .s2k / .sami / .sbt / .smi / .son / .srf / .srt / .ssa / .sst / .ssts / .stl / .stp / .sub / .tts / .vkt / .vsf / .zeg / .txt / .xml

Creating an audio transcript which is correctly formatted for subtitles requires specialist training and software.

The audio transcription must be time-coded with the hours:minutes:seconds:frames for both the time that the subtitle is displayed, and the time it turns off e.g.

00:00:07:00 00:00:08:00 こんにちは！

00:00:08:00 00:00:14:00 Japan Media Serviesへようこそ！ 動画や字幕ならJMS！

If you already have an audio transcript, we can use this to reference things like places, product or people’s names etc. to ensure spelling is correct.  But it won’t decrease the time involved in time-coding the transcript for subtitle purposes.

Our subtitle transcribers have to edit the transcription, and reduce the word count so that it fits in the available screen area, at a legible size. We will also take into consideration the speed of the subtitles, so that the viewer has time to read them at a natural pace.

If you are confident you can supply the transcription in the format we require, and you just require translation or video editing work, please tell us so that we can factor this in at the quoting stage.

If your video has on-screen text and captions, that are placed in the centre-bottom of the screen, then it’s very likely they will be obscured by the added subtitles. If this is a concern, then we can either move the subtitle placement, or if you have the source files, then we can move the captions.

We can also translate all on-screen text, captions and animations if required. There is no set price for this service as every project is unique, so please send us your files for review, if you would like us to provide a costing for this.

The cost for subtitling video in English, for the deaf or hard of hearing, (SDH) is $10 USD per minute ($200 minimum).

Prices for subtitling video in other languages are calculated PER MINUTE of video, and there are four stages in the production process:

[1] Transcription and Time-coding for Subtitles: from $6 USD per minute of video ($60 minimum)

[2] Translation for subtitles: $12-$20 USD per minute average, ($150 minimum), varies by language & level of service required.

[3] Sync Subtitles Translation to video and encode approval video: $8 USD per minute, ($80 USD minimum)
+ $15 USD per additional video file (if more than one video)

[4] Burn-in / Subtitle document (.sbv, .srt, .stl etc.)
Burn-in to video: $35 USD per video file
Create Subtitle Document $20 USD per document, per video.