It’s all about customer experience or, more specifically, viewer experience!
A good subtitling service is a service that gives video watchers a “viewer experience” that looks and feels as if they’re watching in their original language. Viewers, in other words, will enjoy the originality of the movie while simultaneously grasping its meaning.
Video subtitling services are, in essence, a process that consists of the two services of transcribing and translation ─ combined. Subtitling artists often transcribe the words that are uttered on the screen ─ by actors, commentators, or newsreaders ─ and simultaneously translate them into another language.
Media businesses usually add a subtitling service to any content that includes moving pictures. However, this type of service is normally used with movies, TV programs, promotional videos, corporate videos. Also, they are now increasingly being used on a wide scale on internet videos and YouTube.
Video subtitling services make it possible for viewers to understand the dialogue or narration on the screen even though they know nothing about the language of the speakers. If done properly, viewers can hardly notice they are reading while watching the subtitled movie. Yet, if not done well, the entire viewing experience will turn out to be a fiasco!
Based upon the forecast that in 2023, the global entertainment and media market is expected to reach a worth of $2.6 trillion, we can easily figure out why global media businesses are placing a high value on the movie and video subtitling services. Actually, they have every right to!
Why Should You Subtitle Your Movies?
If you are in the media industry, you need to have an idea about the many reasons why a subtitling service is becoming vital for your business to grow to its full potential. Therefore, let’s now dive deeper into those reasons.
1- Overall Audience
If you think local, you’ll always be local. Take YouTube as a thrilling example. Believe it or not. About 60% of video views on YouTube come from non-English speakers!
Given this fact, global-minded media businesses that wish to increase viewership are now keen to add subtitles to their videos so they may easily reach foreign audiences in overseas territories and markets.
2- Silent Watching on Social
Can we ignore these two exciting facts?
- More than 100 million hours of video are being watched on Facebook every day.
- Around 80% of social media users watch promotional videos without sound.
Since we can’t, it’s your chance to leverage the power of video subtitling services. By adding subtitles and captions to your social media video content, these videos can be made to auto-play via Facebook, Twitter, or Google so that viewers need not miss the point.
3- The Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Audience
According to the World Health Organization, more than 5% of the population of our world – 466 million people – has disabling hearing loss, with the figure estimated to hit more than 900 million by 2050. Needless to say, this potential market of viewers is extremely too big to ignore! If you add subtitles to your video content, you’ll definitely be able to engage with this colossal market.
4- Optimize for Global Audience
Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines can’t “view” your motion pictures! They just need some text to crawl through. Therefore, if you add subtitles to your video, search engines will consequently have more content to index. With this, you’ll increase organic traffic and also get higher rankings thanks to more diverse keywords. The two advantages will definitely combine to ultimately boost the viewership of your media.
5- Increase Viewing Time
According to research conducted by social media sites, videos that are viewed with captions are proven to increase viewing time. But why? Simply because video subtitling services make the content more engaging for watchers and therefore it becomes more likely for them to get to the end of the video.
Practical Tips for Video Subtitling Services
It goes without saying that for a global-minded media business, the fundamental reason for partnering with a professional subtitling service vendor is to ultimately provide viewers with a great viewing experience. So, for your video to hit the box office, let’s explore a few tips that help to get the job done with success.
1- Timing is Vital
Video subtitling videos shouldn’t be delivered in a messy way. Synchronization of captions with the spoken words is very important to ensure that the captions appear and disappear in accordance with audio and imagery. An effort should be made to ensure that fast-moving scenes should go with subtitles that have fewer characters so that viewers may be given enough time to follow along.
2- Fewer is Better
Since each subtitle should contain no more than 40 characters, a professional subtitler should be highly versed in the art of summarizing. The fewer words, the better.
3- Caption Your Source Material
Even though in most video sites – including Facebook and YouTube – you’ll find the popular option of displaying speech-to-text auto-captioning, yet there are always some mistakes, especially in brand names. However, you can smooth this imperfection by sourcing video closed captions from a professional translator, to supplement your audiovisual upload.
4- Audio Effects
When it comes to such special effects as “woman screaming” and “cat meowing”, the general rule is to insert sound effect captions in lowercase italics placed in parentheses.
5- Never Congest the Screen!
Generally, the text on the screen should not exceed the limit of two lines. If you fill the screen with words, you’re killing the beauty and pleasure of the viewing experience!
6- Localize!
Remember that a professional subtitling service involves a high degree of localization. You need to pay attention to such aspects as the register, nationality, era, etc. For example, you shouldn’t use “mum” when it’s the right thing to use “mother”, or “pants” when it’s better to use “trousers”. Cultural nuances matter! More importantly, take care when you translate wordplay, proverbs and jokes!
Why Contentech?
Since 1994, Contentech, an ISO 17100 certified language solutions company, has been providing first-class video subtitling services for leading media businesses ─ professionally helping them to extend their global footprint both in the MENA region and worldwide.
At Contentech, we choose our subtitling translators according to rigorous criteria that guarantee that each subtitler will have several important qualities that include:
- They should be accurate and fast.
- They must have a good focus.
- When it comes to command of languages, not only they must be an expert, but they should also show an aptitude for picking up the meaning of a context. In other words, they should be the type of linguists who are capable of figuring out the plot and catching the meaning.
- They should have a gift for summarizing.
- They must be able to manage time effectively and efficiently.
- Our subtitlers should be versed in using all types of subtitling software so that they may be able to complete work in a smart and time-efficient manner.
Furthermore, our top-notch clients in the media industry usually cite a number of reasons why we consistently stand out from the crowd. These reasons include, but are not limited to, our reputation for customer focus, cost-effectiveness, fast turnaround time, impressive customer support, and the rigorous quality assurance system we’re putting in place.
So, if you are seeking a professional subtitling service contact us today for a free quote.
