What are the stages of the subtitling process?

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• What are the stages of the subtitling process?
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What are the stages of the subtitling process?

Subtitling is not as straightforward a process as it may seem, and the workflow depends on the media your footage is going to be used for. Generally, the process consists of the following stages:

• Delivery of the footage on DVD, harddisk, FTP or email.
• 'Spotting' of the footage: We determine the in and out times of each title, divide the speech up in appropriate 'blocks' of two lines and compress where necessary. We check that the reading speed is consistent and appropriate and any online captions are translated. This subtitle file is called the 'master file' because it's the template the translators will use.
• We burn the 'master file' onto the footage in a low-resolution video format. The client watches the video and confirms he/she is happy with the titles.
• The master file is exported and sent to the translators.
• Once translated, the titles are proofed by the editor.
• Once received back from the editor, the titles are imported back into the subtitling software, formatting is finalized and the subtitles are exported in the required format.

What happens next depends on your requirements.

Video for website
If the video is to be put on a website, we can burn the subtitles onto the video and deliver a web standard video file using post production software packages. There is an additional charge for this service.

YouTube video
YouTube accepts .SRT subtitle files, which we can export directly. You can then upload your video and the .SRT file to YouTube and the viewer can switch the subtitles on or off. There is no charge for this export.

DVD
We can deliver DVD-ready subtitles and supporting files for you. We don't as yet burn the DVD's in-house, but are happy to recommend places to get this done.

More information on the subtitling file formats we can produce >