Video subtitling with video preview in Studio?

Hello,

is there a way to preview a video with translated subtitles displayed in some way or other?

Daniel

  • Hi ,

    Not at the moment- but watch this space.
    We are working on a new app and will release more details just as soon as we can.
  • Use Subtitle Edit instead.
    Using CAT tools for subtitling makes not much sense as the texts are hardly ever repetitive... Plus, localized subtitles carry over the original MEANING, but are not necessary a TRANSLATION of the original message.
    At least in MOVIES subtitles...

    Not mentioning the subtitles structure - sentences are usually broken down to separate parts and the translation does not always match the parts 1:1 (different word orders, etc.).
    Plus the timing - subtitles need to be timed properly, and the translated subtitles usually need to be re-aligned (so that sentences/phrases are not cut in a middle and the partial text displayed on the screen does make some sense)

  • Hi
    I agree with regard to movies, but many videos are not movies and for sales and support videos CAT tools do make a lot of sense.
    Daniel
  • Well, my experience is different... for the additional reasons (sentences broken to parts, timing, ...) I found using CAT tools for subtitling being just a complication. Although we did e.g. a LOT of subtitling for Microsoft, I NEVER saw any sentence being re-used...
    But... your mileage may vary... ;-)
  • If your video is a file, like an MP4, open it in VLC (an open-source and free application). Then select Subtitles menu and open your subtitle file, like an SRT file, for example.

    Then play your video file and subtitles will be in the lower part of the VLC window.

  • I agree with regard to movies, but many videos are not movies and for sales and support videos CAT tools do make a lot of sense.

    I completely agree with you   The amount of rich media being used these days has changed the face of video translation quite a bit and it makes a lot of sense to be able to handle video translation with all the benefits of a CAT tool.  We have got one in Beta at the moment and can support SRT, webVTT, SBV and STL so far, all with some support for subtitle formatting in the video and also positioning based on information in the file, also different aspect ratio support.  Looks like this for example:

    Screenshot of SDL Trados Studio interface with a video translation project open, showing a video playback window and a segment editor with German text.

    Also added some QA checks... could add more but we want some feedback to make sure the stuff we put in here will be relevant:

    Screenshot of Trados Studio Project Settings window, displaying Verification Settings for subtitle files with parameters for characters per second, words per minute, and lines per subtitle.

    And we have a TQA model using the FAR methodology:

    Screenshot of Trados Studio Project Settings window, showing Translation Quality Assessment categories and subcategories for reporting translation issues.

    We will in the future add support for more filetypes, but this needs to be based on demand and good reason since this is not just about segmenting text.  We also read and use a lot more information from the file to make the experience more useful.

    We might be open to some external Beta testing if you are really going to test it and provide some feedback.  All to often we get people asking and they provide nothing back to us at all which makes our effort a waste of time.  Might as well wait until we release and then let people complain!

    To answer the points  made, which are valid.  We could have added some capability to adjust the frame information, update information in the target files accordingly etc, but we decided after discussion that it was better (for now) to leave these changes to be made by an appropriately trained person and keep the translation as a separate activity.  Even like this with the information we provide there is considerable benefit reducing the editing effort after translation.

    Regards

    Paul

    emoji


    Generated Image Alt-Text
    [edited by: Trados AI at 10:47 AM (GMT 0) on 4 Mar 2024]
  • Hi

    that looks very promising! Is it going to be an add-on or will it come with the next version or CU?

    As for segmenting, as pointed out, SRT segments are usually somewhat random, which is an obvious problem. I wonder whether instead of segmenting by screen (bunching text that appears on the screen at once (in this case "this is something completely new and unique") into one segment), use the usual segmentation rules ignoring paragraph marks using only the full stop rule (or at least giving that option) and treat the time markers as inline tags.

    Here's an example:

    Screenshot of Trados Studio showing segmented subtitle text with time codes and paragraph markers.

     

    You could segment:

    Segment 1: <Tag: 1><Tag: 00:00:00,498 --> 00:00:02,827>- Here's what I love most about food and diet.

    Segment 2: <Tag: 2><Tag: 00:00:02,827 --> 00:00:06,383>We all eat several times a day,<Paragraph mark tag> and we're totally in charge <Tag: 3><Tag: 00:00:06,383 --> 00:00:09,427>of what goes on our plate<Paragraph mark tag> and what stays off.

    It's easier and less prone to error (file corruption) to split segments than to merge them if I understand past discussions on this forum correctly, so I'd rather segment less initially.

    Daniel

     

    emoji


    Generated Image Alt-Text
    [edited by: Trados AI at 10:48 AM (GMT 0) on 4 Mar 2024]
  • Unknown said:
    that looks very promising! Is it going to be an add-on or will it come with the next version or CU?

    Initial release will be as a plugin through the SDL AppStore for Studio 2019 only.

    Unknown said:
    I wonder whether instead of segmenting by screen (bunching text that appears on the screen at once (in this case "this is something completely new and unique") into one segment), use the usual segmentation rules ignoring paragraph marks using only the full stop rule (or at least giving that option) and treat the time markers as inline tags.

    First point is that we deliberately restrict merging across paragraph breaks.  The SRT filetype controls this and we have done the same thing with webVTT, SBV and STL.  Allowing this adds a lot of complexity because you don't have the ability to change the time frames and you will also lose the ability to QA the work based on existing allowable times per character rates.  So adding times as internal tags removes the ability to QA altogether.

    The reason for the plugin is this:

    • provides the translator with context
    • provides some QA around the way in which the source text has been prepared for the times in the video, so the translation should match this

    If time frames or other changes need to be made then the translator can mark them for a localization engineer to do later using a suitable video subtitling/editing software.

    We may revisit this in the future, but for now these are the problems we are addressing.



  • No firm date... but I expect it to be this month. We are just testing at the moment and have already completed all the features we wanted to implement for this release.