Subtitling for Corporate & Educational Videos

1. Home
2. Translations
3. Subtitling Service

Subtitles

Subtitling for corporate videos, training and education (tutorials, demos, infomercials, customer service, conferences, documentaries, speeches, lectures, webinars, etc.)

Unlike a simple transcription, which usually does not require special formatting, time stamps and specific rules, subtitles to videos must comply with a series of standards. Also, the translation of subtitles is usually the result of a previous transcription of the original audio of the video. Due to human perception and technical reasons, the subtitles do not necessarily perfectly match the transcription – and therefore the audio track(s) – of the video file but they are a valid and useful tool to make your video compelling and digestible to a foreign audience.

Because subtitles have to be read while watching the video they relate to, for them to be effective and make the watching experience enjoyable, they have to score high in terms of being:

• Legible and readable: Subtitles must be well visible and last enough to allow reading them
• Complete and thorough: All the critical concepts must be conveyed avoiding long, convoluted text which may perfectly reflect the original speech, and work fine on paper but would not work as subtitles synchronized to the video. Also, the subtitles should – as much as possible – reflect the style and register of the speaker.
• Smooth and natural: Although concise, the sentences must be understandable and sound natural
• Discrete: They should not cover a large area of the screen and compromise the visual experience

Keeping those ideas in mind, the rules for good subtitling are:

• Length: Subtitles should normally not exceed 2 lines, each long up to 40 or so characters
• Duration: The minimum duration of a subtitle depends on its length and the word or sentence it refers to. Usually, it goes from 1.5 seconds for short subtitles up to 8 seconds for longer text. There should also be a pause between one subtitle and the next. Humans on average can read 3 or 4 words per second.
• Colour: Subtitles are usually white. When the background is itself white or very bright, one can use yellow or put the text on a darker background to ensure there is enough contrast for good readability.
• Position: Subtitles are projected in the lower end of the image, and text is usually either center- or left-aligned.
• Conciseness: To properly convey all the main concepts within the time and space limits of subtitles, subtitles may sum up the actual text, skip unimportant details and yet communicate in a natural way all that the person speaking is saying.
• Synchronization: Subtitles should never “drag” into the next scene but sync as much as possible with the spoken words on the screen but allow enough time to be read, and offer an experience similar to that lived by someone consuming the content in its original language.

There are also additional formatting rules to comply with for punctuation, capitalisation, etc.

Italian Subtitles for YouTube

Along with subtitling, I offer also transcription services for Italian and English. Transcripts provide benefits both from an SEO, and an accessibilty standpoint.

Subtitles vs Captions

How do captions differ from subtitles?

Subtitles transcribe to text the speech happening on video.

Target: generally, they are designed for viewers who can hear but do not understand the language in the video.

Subtitles are not fully accessible to people who are deaf or hearing-impaired. That is where captions come in.

Captions transcribe to text the speech, and other audio cues happening on video, like noises, laughter, music, etc.

Closed Captions (usually CC) — the most common form of captions. Users can turn closed captions on or off. In some cases, the media player can also allow for customisation of options such as the type, size and colour of the font used for CC.

Open Captions — these captions are embedded in the video. Users cannot turn them on or off. In some cases, they are used on social media where the video is automatically played but with the sound disabled. Thus, they allow for a complete experience of a video in environments which may require silence, or are simply too noisy to enjoy the original audio.

Target: they are designed to provide a full auditory context for viewers who cannot hear or in environments where listening is not ideal.

If you also need translation of the content, please visit this page.