The charity I work for has required subtitles on its DVD's for the last couple of years..... the problem is that it's all done in house. At last count I think we were up to 9 languages including English. However since our media/viewers are moving away from physical DVD distribution and more towards web delivery options we have been trying to find ways to get subtitles up onto (and into files delivered by) the likes of Vimeo and YouTube.
Recently we cracked it and here's an example of a test version we put on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/toservehiminasia#p/a/u/0/r5mAT7fkzzQ
You'll need to select the languages from the closed caption (cc) icon on YouTube's video tool bar.
Although we've finally managed to do it, it was in fact a retro fit, i.e. initially we created the DVD subtitles in DVD studio, distributed the DVD and then went back and messed with various applications to pull it out of Studio Pro and onto YouTube and also 'into' a .mov file whereby QuickTime can super the subtitles (for download distribution via Vimeo).
OK the problem is that this is a very lengthy process using three applications and eventually we want to stop all DVD distribution and go solely with Net delivery. So my question for those of you dabbling in this area is what is your workflow from the final cut video on your timeline to Net distribution (assuming you don't go via DVD studio)? What applications are you using? Equally if you are just going the DVD route, again what applications are you using since we suspect DVD Studio is not the best route, it has the odd bug or three:-)
Many Thanks.
Now this is cool. I've just noticed that YouTube are offering two new beta features under the closed caption pop up menu option (ie the 'CC' icon). These are 'translate audio' and 'translate captions'.
So if you take my previous link: http://www.youtube.com/user/toservehiminasia#p/a/u/0/r5mAT7fkzzQ
and choose 'Translate Captions BETA' you have most of the world's langauges available to you!!!!
I assume it is generating these from the English SRT file we uploaded and is then putting them through a Babelfish style translator on the fly.
OK I know for a fact that the caption translations are not perfect (my wife speaks Romanian and verified this), but they are in the general ball park as much as Bablefish would normally be.
The transcribe audio option seems a bit more hit and miss... mostly miss at this stage. in fact for a real laugh turn it on and compare the actual audio to the speech recognition captions... it's a hoot in places!
However overall the caption translations is a cool step in the right direction for those of us working with international audiences.
Well done YouTube, keep plugging away until you get it right..... and come on Vimeo get you're act together, you don't even offer streaming closed captions yet!!!