Subtitling

World Translation Center provides high quality subtitle translation in over 150 languages, including all the major languages of the world, at competitive rates. Any video can be subtitled into any language.

Our translation experts can handle all your video subtitling projects. An experienced industry specific subtitle translator will handle your document with expertise. We can subtitle any video, whether it is a short video or footage of several hours.

World Translation Center uses only professional, human translators who have been tested extensively for their understanding of cross-cultural knowledge for all subtitling projects. All our translators are native speakers, mostly living in their native country, and only translate into their native language to ensure the highest-quality translation possible. We take quality very seriously. Our translators value accuracy and a quick turnaround.

Subtitles are delivered as graphics files for your individual authoring system or we can encode your videotape, digital file or DVD and even format as web files. Your subtitle project is created by specially trained subtitling specialists.

Subtitling versus Closed Captioning:
Choosing subtitles instead of closed captions is often the only choice for a DVD, as Blu-ray players and HDMI cables do not pass through caption data. Clients rely on World Translation Center to subtitle their video to meet Section 508 compliance.

Section 508 (http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?fuseAction=Laws)

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities. Inaccessible technology interferes with an ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, open new opportunities for people with disabilities, and encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. ‘794 d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to access available to others. It is recommended that you review the laws and regulations listed below to further your understanding about Section 508 and how you can support implementation.

Videos with subtitle files can be viewed on any DVD player or computer, videos with Closed Captioning files, however, can very often only be viewed on TVs.

There are two types of captioning. In open-captioning, the words are visible on the screen. In closed-captioning, the captions are hidden to viewers unless captioning is turned on.

Roll-up Captions:
We can produce two captioning styles for encoding, pop-on or roll-up.
Roll-up captions roll onto and off the screen in a continuous motion. Usually two lines of text appear at one time. Roll-up captions are used for all live captioning and can also be used for prerecorded captioning.

Pop-On Captions:
A phrase or sentence appears on the screen all at once – not line by line – stays there for a few seconds and then disappears or is replaced by another full caption. The captions are timed to synchronize with the program and placed on the screen to help identify the speaker. Pop-on captions are used for prerecorded captioning.

Captions/subtitles that can be turned on and off:
FinalCut Pro accepts .scc files, which can be created only for languages using our Latin alphabet. In this case, a QuickTime export should be sent. Time codes will be extracted, the captions or subtitles created and delivered as .scc files. When viewing FinalCut pro using .scc files, captions have to be turned on in advance.

Let us be your one-stop resource for making anything on video accessible to any audience. Contact us!

Multilingual subtitling:
Creating easy to follow subtitles is the art of adapting the references and idioms of one culture so they make sense to an audience who’s living in another. Our multi language team has translated and subtitled many programs for individual clients and corporations, often providing several languages for one single production.

Subtitling is a great and lower cost alternative to voice-over. We can currently subtitle in most languages. If you don’t see the language you need, please contact us.

File format:
Our caption and subtitles formats are compatible with Windows Media Player, QuickTime, RealPlayer, Flash, YouTube and more. Our transcoding experts convert to and from most formats, including Flash, WMV, QuickTime, MP4, MP2, or M4V. We deliver your project quickly via secure FTP.

Example of subtitle file with time codes:

SUBTITLE: 1     TIMEIN: 01:00:05:18       DURATION: 02:24          TIMEOUT: 01:00:08:12
PI solution has given us information
SUBTITLE: 2     TIMEIN: 01:00:08:15       DURATION: 03:24          TIMEOUT: 01:00:12:09
that is trustworthy, traceable,
and historical.
SUBTITLE: 3     TIMEIN: 01:00:12:12       DURATION: 04:02          TIMEOUT: 01:00:16:14
It has given us significant gains
in performance.
SUBTITLE: 4     TIMEIN: 01:00:16:17       DURATION: 04:26          TIMEOUT: 01:00:21:13
In using our applications,
we seek to manage data,

EXAMPLE: SONIC FILE FORMAT EDIT LIST, extension: .sst
st_format 2
TV_Type NTSC
Tape_Type NON_DROP
################################################# Index     RGB    
# 1     (0 0 0)     Black
# 2     (255 0 0)     Red
# 3     (0 255 0)     Green
# 4     (255 255 0)     Yellow
# 5     (0 0 255)     Blue
# 6     (255 0 255)     Pink
# 7     (0 255 255)     Cyan
# 8     (255 255 255)     White
# 9     Unused    
# 10     Unused    
# 11     Unused    
################################################
Display_Start   non_forced
Pixel_Area (2 479)
Display_Area (0 2 719 479)
Color (1 8 5 2)
Contrast (0 15 15 15)
E2   (255 0 0   = = = )
E1   (0 0 255   = = = )
PA   (255 255 255   = = = )
BG   (0 0 0   = = = )
Directory
################################################
SP_NUMBER    START  END                 FILE_NAME
Color (1 8 5 2)
1          00:00:00:24       00:00:04:17       sp10001.tif
2          00:00:04:20       00:00:07:27       sp10002.tif
3          00:00:08:00       00:00:13:09       sp10003.tif
4          00:00:13:12       00:00:15:27       sp10004.tif

Examples of actual subtitles matching above .sst file [size reduced for easy viewing]. Name of the files as delivered:
sp10001.tif
sp10002.tif

Individual subtitle files can be delivered as tif or png files for all subtitling software available, always together with the edit list. You may select the font and the color of your subtitles. The most common software ones are: Sonic, Sonic Scenarist, stl formats, Final Cut Pro and Adobe.

Positioning of graphics:
Subtitles are placed on the bottom of the screen as seen above.  If screen text already exists on the video where the subtitles would normally be placed, we’ll reposition the subtitles around such screen text and avoid covering any faces or important parts of the video.  If necessary, we can position above such screen text or create a one-line subtitle above a head. 

Mapping:
Color settings can be adjusted in your inspector in order for the Alpha channel to work. Adjusting the colors will produce the results you’re looking for.

Encoding or laying subtitles:
We can lay the subtitles we created to your video for a small fee.

Authoring video or DVD:
DVD authoring is the process of taking the video files and organizing them together with menus, links and buttons to allow a user to interactively navigate to the desired portions of the DVD and view them. Another part of authoring is the process of importing and organizing the different language audios and different language screen texts so an individual can watch any one particular track in any one language. This requires a different button for every track, in every language and a method of returning to the selection menu if a selection mistake is made or a viewing has reached the end.

Conversion to PAL:
Authored DVD Masters or Beta SP can be converted to PAL.

Screen text:
Screen text or graphic on your video will be identified as such when transcribing or translating your video or DVD.