How To Translate Videos Professionally

If you have videos which you would like to market to a wider audience globally, translation can be a great way forward. Translating your video content is brilliant for boosting SEO, by allowing search engines to pick up on even more important keywords. It’s also beneficial in improving your company’s reputation and identity as a global brand. So you’ve decided you want to translate your videos, but how to do you ensure that you provide your audience with the high quality coherent translations they deserve? Here’s our top tips when it comes to translating videos professionally.

Script and Document Translation

Translating text is often cheaper and faster than translating video. If you have a script available for the dialogue or voiceover to your video, it’s a great idea to get that translated rather than paying out for foreign transcription prior to translation. Similarly, if your video contains infographics and/or onscreen text and titles that need to be translated, providing a document with the required text will save time and money.

If you are translating videos professionally, Capital Captions offer fully comprehensive translation services with fast turnaround times, low prices and the highest quality imaginable. We work with document translation, subtitle translation, foreign voiceovers and dubbing, and full video editing services. For more information about the best option for you, check out your translation options below:

Translating Videos Professionally:

Subtitle and Closed Caption Translation

When it comes to voice, or indeed, simple infographics, foreign subtitling and caption translation are often the way to go. Closed captioning services can be turned around quickly and at a low cost when compared to other translation options. One thing to consider when choosing to translate video through the use of captions is the context in which your videos will be watched. If you are distributing your content mainly online or via social media, it’s become common knowledge that many viewers will use captions instead of sound, digesting video content remotely. So if your video is online, subtitles may be the perfect option for you.

Voiceover Translation and Dubbing

A more expensive option to closed captioning is to translate videos through the use of voiceovers and/or dubbing. Voiceover translation involves translating narrated content which is spoken over a video and edited in. In contrast, translation and foreign dubbing is more complex. Dubbing is the process of having actors replace dialogue in your video, matching lip-sync and timing for a natural finish. Where voiceovers are often undertaken by one voice artist, dubbing requires numerous artists (one for each character or person within your video). Voiceovers and dubbing can be a preferable option if your video is to be watched live at an event and/or distributed as a full video that is likely to be watched with sound. Replacing sound in this way, translating video through the use of dubbing is a far superior option if you are working with a film that already has a lot of onscreen text and/or graphics where captions would overwhelm the viewing experience.

Video Editing and Graphics Translation

If your video has a lot of graphics and/or onscreen text, it’s a good idea to translate and edit your video entirely in the target language. Translating PowerPoint style video presentations and animated text is a time consuming process. Often, a translation company may request ‘clean’ videos with no text added to work from and/or access to After Effects, Premiere or other video software files and assets in order to easily integrate the newly translated text seamlessly into your video. This isn’t always possible, and sometimes you may need a company to work with masking the current text/animations and replacing the translated text from there. At Capital Captions, we work with both options; offering bespoke video editing services, using your current working files or replacing and masking your current video from scratch, as required. Whichever your option, it’s important to work with a reputable translation and video editing company if looking for these services.