Frequently asked questions

This is a commonly held belief, but the truth is that only about one-third of the world’s population speaks English. Aside from that, subtitles aid comprehension. This is perhaps why, as a recent study revealed, the vast majority of users choose to activate subtitles even if the original video is in the mother tongue. So, for your video content to have the widest possible reach, subtitles are the answer.

Automatic transcription systems are not failsafe. The resulting transcription is likely to contain errors. Those errors could create serious misunderstandings that damage your image or the reputation of your company. Without human intervention, speech recognition technology simply transcribes what is said, without taking into account the kinds of adaptations required to make the text more understandable, especially when translated into another language. Automatically generated subtitles (like those of the service YouTube provides) are not recognised by search engines for SEO purposes, whereas professional human subtitling is. So, human subtitling is your best bet to make your video content searchable, truly accessible, informative and professional.

How long the subtitling process takes depends on factors such as the amount of speech, the complexity of the topic and the style of the dialogue, which may or may not contain cultural nuances, puns, or jokes that are difficult to adapt to the target language or country. As a rule of thumb, five minutes of video takes about 1 hour to subtitle. This means that subtitling a 90-minute film could take around 18 hours.