Subtitling and Transcription Services

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Video communication is used in every aspect of corporate and political life, from marketing and training, to fundraising, online communications and social media. The addition of high-quality subtitling and transcription services allows you to film once – and speak an infinite number of times – for a fraction of what it would cost you to recreate photos and video footage in other languages.

The team at Chang-Castillo and Associates can add subtitles to any video or picture-based montage in any language spoken on the planet – from Afrikaans to Zulu. We provide platinum-standard translation services that transform the way our clients communicate with their clients and prospects.

Quality is our #1 priority

Some people consider subtitling and transcriptions an easy chance to use machine translators and get the job done simply. The result is a high-dollar video production that loses all credibility – and risks your brand’s hard-earned reputation – via awkward or potentially offensive translations.

Quality is always the #1 priority for our translators. The team working on subtitles puts the same level of attention to detail into their work as they do when they’re translating political and corporate communications or technical manuals.

This includes a three-tier quality assurance protocol ensuring the final translation is both sensitive and relevant to your target language audience:

1. The original wording is translated by a linguist.

2. A second linguist edits the translation.

3. Finally, a 3rd and separate linguist proofreads the translated script, transcript and subtitles to catch and repair any potential errors or to finalize any changes required for a more fluid translation.

We are happy to translate your existing script as is or adapt it into shorter subtitles for you. This makes the resulting text easier and faster to read, allowing the audience to equally focus on the compelling visuals in the video.

One-shop experts for transcription, translation and subtitling services

While transcription, translation and subtitling are very different tasks, the ability to take advantage of our one-shop services saves your team time and money. We can put any speech featured in a recording into written words, then translate it into one or several languages, and add it as subtitles to your video.

We also ensure the target language’s spelling and alphabet are respected – something machine translations do not do well, particularly when working with languages that don’t use the English alphabet, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Russian and Indian languages.

Service Types

There are basically two different ways to handle subtitles: they can be muxed or burned.

Muxed Subtitles
Burned Subtitles

Also called multiplexed, muxed subtitles give you the ability to have a default video with multiple language options that are activated or disabled depending on your (or the viewer’s) wishes. This is faster than burned options since the original video exists as is – no rendering required. Ultimately, you can have an array of language audio and subtitle options stored in the main file “container,” all able to be selected as desired by the user(s).

Burned subtitles are hardcoded (burned) into the video image for a more permanent version. Once the video is rendered, there is no ability to add, delete, change or disable the subtitles. They are always visible, independently of what device or software is being used to play the video. Rendering a long file can take hours and is a processor-intensive task so always verify that burned subtitles are the best choice for your project.