Professional subtitling and transcription: get your video ready to reach new audiences

Professional subtitling and transcription: get your video ready to reach new audiences

Professional subtitling and transcription
A production company finishes a documentary. A marketing agency prepares an international campaign. A business wants to publish interviews or training videos in several languages. In each of these projects, words are part of the final result: they need to convey the message with the same care as the images and sound.
Automated tools can speed up transcription and subtitle generation. But before publication, who checks that the content is accurate, comfortable to read and consistent with the brand’s tone?
Transcription, subtitling and audiovisual translation: what does your project need?
Transcription turns spoken content into written text. It is useful for working with interviews, preparing scripts, documenting recordings or repurposing content for articles and other materials.
Subtitling adds text synchronised with the audio. It can reproduce speech in the same language or provide a translated version to help a video reach other audiences.
Audiovisual translation requires attention to the whole picture: what is said, what appears on screen, the intended message and how much time viewers have to read it.
I already have automatic subtitles. Why do they need reviewing?
A text can look correct while containing an error that changes the message. A missing negative, an incorrectly transcribed figure or a misheard brand name may go unnoticed if nobody checks the subtitles against the recording.
Professional review checks the content against the original audio and images. It also addresses terminology, punctuation, speaker identification and consistency throughout the video.
When the material needs translating, this check is particularly valuable: an error in the initial transcript can spread to every language version.
Translating subtitles takes more than knowing two languages
Preserving meaning and tone
A slogan, joke or colloquial expression can lose its impact when translated literally. The wording needs to sound natural to the target audience and reflect the intention of the video.
Working with native translators who translate into their mother tongue and have experience in audiovisual content helps ensure these decisions are made with sound judgement.
Making subtitles easy to read
Viewers need to read the subtitles while following the images. This means adjusting the length of the text, dividing lines logically and synchronising when subtitles appear and disappear.
Sometimes, speech needs to be condensed while preserving the essential information. This requires an understanding of the context and a judgement about what must be conveyed.
Maintaining terminology and brand voice
Product names, technical concepts and marketing messages need to remain consistent with the company’s other materials. A glossary and brand guidelines help keep the different versions aligned.
What does an agency bring to a multilingual project?
When a campaign needs several languages, it also needs coordination: choosing the right professionals, centralising instructions, handling queries and managing versions.
For production companies and marketing agencies, having a single point of contact simplifies this process and brings feedback and revisions together.
The service can be adapted to the project’s starting point: an untranscribed recording, an existing script, a set of subtitles or an automatically generated first draft. Each set of materials needs assessing to determine the work required.
Your next video, in more languages
At Easy Translations, we provide transcription, subtitling and audiovisual translation services for production companies, marketing agencies and businesses looking to communicate with new audiences.
We work with native translators translating into their mother tongue and offer personalised project coordination.
Do you have a video that needs transcribing or subtitling? Send us the material or a sample, and let us know the target languages, publication channel and intended deadline. We will prepare a quote tailored to your project.