Tips for Better Subtitling

Tips for Better Subtitling Many of you might have observed that even though the translation in subtitles is quite good you often have great difficulty in reading through it and following the plot of what you are viewing. This is because the person placing the subtitles has just put them in without giving any consideration to certain important aspects of subtitling. While burning subtitles after a translation, it is important to keep in mind a few things in mind such that it becomes easy for the viewer to read the subtitles easily and follow what is being conveyed. The translation should be concise and apt and communicate what needs to be understood as simple as possible. For easy reading it is important not to place too many characters in a line while subtitling. Also, it is important to bear in mind the average speed at which the viewers can read through the subtitles, yet it should match the speed at which things are transpiring on the screen. As grammar is important to any translation, proper division of the lines is necessary for subtitling. This enables the viewer to read through the subtitles with ease and yet can see what is happening on the screen. If proper division of lines is not maintained, it will just end up like a jumble of sentences causing undue confusion to the viewer. If the entire text cannot be placed in one line, then the division of lines has to be performed. The best way to divide lines is after a punctuation mark and prior to conjunctions (and, because, or, etc) and prepositions (for, in, on, etc). A few other things to remember is not to break down names, abbreviations, numbers, phrases, etc that will make it difficult for the viewer to understand what is being conveyed. The best method to follow while subtitling is to think of whether the target audience will be able to read through your subtitles in the manner in which they are appearing along with following the events on screen.

Software for Subtitling

Photo Credit Josef Stufer Software for Subtitling Subtitling involves the dual process of translating as well as incorporating the subtitles in the appropriate slots to correspond with the audio as and when it is playing. This incorporation of subtitles is done by a process of timing the audio by a process known as spotting. The subtitles are burned onto the DVD using appropriate hardware and software for the process. Spotting and burning the subtitles requires specialized software for the process. These can be in the form of freeware that is available on the internet or can be purchased. Different people use different software as is recommended by the client or as is comfortable to them. Some examples of software that is used for subtitling includes the following: DivXLand Media Subtitler that is a freeware available at http://www.divxland.org/index.php. This needs Windows media player version 9 and above. Another freeware is Sub Station Alpha that can be found at http://www.topdownloads.net/software/view.php?id=9740. Apart from this there is Real Subtitler that needs Real Player to function and can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/realsubtitler. Horse, software useful for translation and spotting that is found at http://www.mat.puc-rio.br/~jufreire/horse/ InqScribe, a shareware that can be purchased at http://www.inquirium.net/products/inqscribe/index.html. This needs Quick Time version 7 and above to function. Another shareware is Stream SubText that can be purchased at http://www.jorgemorones.com/sst/. The most preferred and highly recommended software used in subtitling is the URUSoft Subtitle Workshop, which is a freeware that can be found at http://www.urusoft.net/products.php?lang=1. There are some subtitlers that prefer to use this software with other freeware such as Visual Sub Sync to make their work even simpler and much easier. The software used for subtitling is generally used for spotting where the duration of every subtitle is timed and is incorporated to match the audio. This is done by placing the text on a text file as in Notepad and then using the specialized software, it is time-coded. The process of spotting and burning of the subtitles is generally performed by the translators it is not uncommon for many of them to outsource the work of spotting and burning to another person.