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Thread poster: sandyguns
Aug 20, 2010

We are fairly new to the world of Sub-titling / Closed Captioning. I have a school client, who has requested to transcribe and provide subtitling to the lectures in various areas like Biology, maths, physics, etc. They have a huge volume to provide but problem is it is not something I or my company has done in the past. But we are very keen to do it. Any guideline on where to start? The videos are in English and the sub-titling has to be provided in English. The videos are in MP4 format. We hav... See more
We are fairly new to the world of Sub-titling / Closed Captioning. I have a school client, who has requested to transcribe and provide subtitling to the lectures in various areas like Biology, maths, physics, etc. They have a huge volume to provide but problem is it is not something I or my company has done in the past. But we are very keen to do it. Any guideline on where to start? The videos are in English and the sub-titling has to be provided in English. The videos are in MP4 format. We have to provide the sub-titled videos back in the same format.

Please suggest the following:
1. Sub-titling software to Use.
2. Any automatic voice translation softwares are available in market?
3. Process to follow.

Any help here will be highly appreciated.

Thanks!
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José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 00:12
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Is it subtitling or closed-captioning? Aug 20, 2010

Closed captioning (aka CC) is for the hearing impaired, or for exhibition in either noisy places where audio can't be heard, or silent places where audio shouldn't be heard. Captions are in the same language as the audio, include the full script, plus the description between brackets of any sound effects, e.g. door slams, car starts etc.

CC is encoded in the video itself and decoded by the TV set. It already existed in the days of analog video (e.g. VHS tape).

Subtitles
... See more
Closed captioning (aka CC) is for the hearing impaired, or for exhibition in either noisy places where audio can't be heard, or silent places where audio shouldn't be heard. Captions are in the same language as the audio, include the full script, plus the description between brackets of any sound effects, e.g. door slams, car starts etc.

CC is encoded in the video itself and decoded by the TV set. It already existed in the days of analog video (e.g. VHS tape).

Subtitles involve translation and summarizing to the bare essentials, so the spectator will have some time after reading to watch the images.

A general roundup of what can be done (not the how-to you are looking for) may be found on my web site, at http://www.lamensdorf.com.br/guide.html . Some other useful information on the matter is available at http://www.lamensdorf.com.br/video101.html .

As you mention it's for a school, I am against subtitling educational/training videos. If the students will spend most of the time reading subtitles, they'll see little of the video itself. Give them a printed handout, then! I favor video dubbing in these cases, though it's more expensive.

On a final note, CC and subtitling use different software. I've done subtitling for hearing impaired spectators instead of CC, however I warned the client that it would not be the true closed captioning.

Everything you might need to know about digital video may be found by searching on http://www.videohelp.com .
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