Audio, video and multimedia solutions with mpü
Multimedia localisation: voiceover, synchronisation and subtitling
Multimedia content is omnipresent in our networked world. Whether it’s needed to disseminate specialised information in a professional or educational environment or simply for entertainment.
Ensuring the accessible design of multimedia is also important for specific groups of people.
To ensure that you strike the right note in all languages, we would be happy to help you to translate your audio and video projects in a wide range of areas:
- Marketing: image films, advertising films, interviews, product presentations, telephone information services
- Further training: podcasts, documentaries, recordings of conferences and congresses
- Training: training videos, tutorials, webinars
- Instructions for use
Your challenge is our service.
Processing steps
The localisation of audio and video content comprises multiple process steps to achieve the best possible result in the end. To do this, well integrated collaboration between the multiple specialists that support us with their specialist knowledge on various processing steps is needed.
We coordinate the project schedule through to delivery and integrate the work of our professional partners into the entire process so attention is also paid to the specific details.
The most important steps in multimedia localisation briefly explained:
Transcription
In this method, the audio and the video content are translated in written form.
This not only enables the quality check to be carried out by a native reviewer, for example, it also enables the translation to be approved by the customer before it is incorporated into the multimedia formats.
If there is no written transcript for the words that are spoken or that appear on the screen, our native speaker translators will create the transcript taking into account your requirements and conventions (inserting or leaving out filler words, formatting, etc.).
Depending on the type of further processing, what are known as time stamps are used here. These are needed in subtitling, voiceovers and synchronisation.
Translation of the Transcript
Then our technical translators translate the transcript into the desired language(s).
During translation, checks are carried out to determine whether the text will ultimately be written in the subtitles, spoken offstage or said in front of the camera. Depending on the variant, the text length and word selection need to be adapted here.
We recommend translation according to DIN EN ISO 17100 including revision by a second independent translator to achieve a result that will prevent subsequent correction work. A mistake that the speaker only notices in the sound studio can be more expensive than the entire translation.
We would be happy to send you the translations for approval before they are further processed to make sure everything is as you want it to be and excessive correction work can be avoided in advance.
Your problem might be covered by one of our services
Voiceover – synchronisation – subtitling
The following options are available for integrating the translations we ultimately have into the multimedia content:
Voiceover
For the voiceover, the target language translation is then recorded by a professional native speaker in the sound studio.
Depending on the project and the intended use, the recording can later be placed over the original audio track or integrated into the video as a single audio track (e.g. for documentaries as a speaker’s voice from offstage).
Synchronisation
Translation and sound recording are slightly more complex and challenging for dubbing because, as is the case for a feature film, we have to think about lip synchronicity with the person shown in the video (e.g. in interviews when the person who is talking can be seen).
Subtitling
Subtitles are created in a special cutting program and reproduce the spoken text in condensed form.
Subtitled can be created in various different formats (e.g. SRT and VTT).
If the customer does not have a subtitle file with the original text, we would be happy to create one for them. The translations are then prepared for the subtitles and embedded into the video in synchronisation with the sound.
Timing and text length are particularly important here so viewers have enough time to read and can grasp the content properly.
A combination of subtitles and dubbing is also popular with our customers, and sometimes even essential to make the video accessible if written text is displayed on the screen in addition to the spoken word.
