Are there any CAT tools for subtitling?
Thread poster: Naraeoni Lee
Naraeoni Lee
Naraeoni Lee  Identity Verified
South Korea
Korean to English
+ ...
Mar 3, 2016

Hi,
I have recently found out that Netflix is looking for translators for subtitling.
Is there anyone who knows or familiar with how it works, and with what CAT tool if there's any ?

Thanks in advance for your help !


[Edited at 2016-03-03 00:05 GMT]


 
Max Deryagin
Max Deryagin  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 20:33
Member (2013)
English to Russian
- Mar 3, 2016

daphne3038 wrote:

Hi,
I have recently found out that Netflix is looking for translators for subtitling.
Is there anyone who knows or familiar with how it works, and with what CAT tool if there's any ?

Thanks in advance for your help !


From what I remember, they want their candidates to work via Sferastudios who have their own web interface for subtitling. So you first will need to pass several tests, and then you'll be able to work via Sfera's web tool.


 
Monica Paolillo
Monica Paolillo
Italy
Local time: 16:33
English to Italian
+ ...
No such thing as a CAT tool for subtitling Mar 3, 2016

Daphne, can't answer your question specifically but I suppose no CAT tool will be used. It'd hardly make sense in an industry (TV, cinema) where the use of repetitions is most unlikely.

 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 12:33
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Upon working on templates Mar 3, 2016

Monica Paolillo wrote:

No such thing as a CAT tool for subtitling

Daphne, can't answer your question specifically but I suppose no CAT tool will be used. It'd hardly make sense in an industry (TV, cinema) where the use of repetitions is most unlikely.


I normally work from script-less video, directly from the audio track.

However for a while I translated a large quantity of feature films for one subtitling studio in LA. Of course, as they were having each film done for umpteen languages, templates were used, and my rate in $ per minute was about one-third of my usual no-script from-audio rate.

They sent me those templates in *.DOC files, used three different colors for various subtitle functions, and the script to translate was all in black. As I use WordFast Classic, I had MS Word find all occurrences of these other colors, highlight them with 25% grey, and then set WFC to treat the 25% grey highlights as "untranslatable".

This saved me a humongous amount of time, because Alt+DnArrow would take me to the next translatable segment instantly, without having to move through in/out times, comments, whatever. If this saved me three seconds in each subtitle, it saved me 50 minutes in ever 1,000 of them, which is a lot.

Of course, there wasn't much use for the translation memory, since a movie with repeated segments would be an unendurable bore, but the CAT tool really boosted my speed.


 
Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 16:33
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
No CAT tools Mar 3, 2016

Max Deryagin wrote:


From what I remember, they want their candidates to work via Sferastudios who have their own web interface for subtitling. So you first will need to pass several tests, and then you'll be able to work via Sfera's web tool.


That's right. You would first have to spend several unpaid hours of test translations, I believe there were some 5 or 6 tests. They also work on a first come, first served basis, so as soon as you get a notification you have to beat all other translators in your language pair.


 
Monica Paolillo
Monica Paolillo
Italy
Local time: 16:33
English to Italian
+ ...
First come first served? Mar 3, 2016

Are you talking about Netflix or Sferastudios? Do you have first-hand experience about this?



Thayenga wrote:

Max Deryagin wrote:


From what I remember, they want their candidates to work via Sferastudios who have their own web interface for subtitling. So you first will need to pass several tests, and then you'll be able to work via Sfera's web tool.


That's right. You would first have to spend several unpaid hours of test translations, I believe there were some 5 or 6 tests. They also work on a first come, first served basis, so as soon as you get a notification you have to beat all other translators in your language pair.


 
Georgi Kovachev
Georgi Kovachev  Identity Verified
Bulgaria
Local time: 17:33
Member (2010)
English to Bulgarian
+ ...
Fluency Now is able to open .srt files Mar 3, 2016

Hi,

As far as I know, Fluency Now can handle .srt files, but I have no experience in terms of this functionality.

Could you test it – if you have any .srt files available, I do not – and give us feedback. Thanks in advance in this respect.


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 12:33
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Most subtitles files are plain TXT Mar 3, 2016

Georgi Kovachev wrote:

Hi,

As far as I know, Fluency Now can handle .srt files, but I have no experience in terms of this functionality.

Could you test it – if you have any .srt files available, I do not – and give us feedback. Thanks in advance in this respect.


Most non-proprietary subtitle files (e.g. SSA, ASS, SRT, SUB, STL, etc.) are plain text files. I often "tweak" my SSAs using the Windows Notepad.

I wouldn't know about Spot, Swift, and other subtitling programs that use proprietary formats.

This means that ANY CAT tool would be able to work on these files. The key issue is on how to EASILY and QUICKLY mark anything that should not be translated, i.e. subtitle #, in/out times, char formatting specs, position shift, notes, etc. as UNTRANSLATABLES.

WordFast Classic is a MS Word macro, so it operates within Word, which has these making tools. I wouldn't know how other CAT tools operate "untranslatables".

Anyway, the Translation Memory shouldn't be at all useful, otherwise you'll be subtitling an unusually boring flick.


 
Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 16:33
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Both Mar 5, 2016

Monica Paolillo wrote:

Are you talking about Netflix or Sferastudios? Do you have first-hand experience about this?



Thayenga wrote:

Max Deryagin wrote:


From what I remember, they want their candidates to work via Sferastudios who have their own web interface for subtitling. So you first will need to pass several tests, and then you'll be able to work via Sfera's web tool.


That's right. You would first have to spend several unpaid hours of test translations, I believe there were some 5 or 6 tests. They also work on a first come, first served basis, so as soon as you get a notification you have to beat all other translators in your language pair.


I did work with Sfera Studios for a short time, then stopped for several reasons, one having been the notification of new projects in the middle of (my) the night. Netflix uses the same procedures.


 
Slobodan Kozarčić
Slobodan Kozarčić  Identity Verified
Serbia
Local time: 16:33
Member (2016)
English to Serbian
+ ...
Netflix and translators Apr 6, 2016

daphne3038 wrote:

Hi,
I have recently found out that Netflix is looking for translators for subtitling.
Is there anyone who knows or familiar with how it works, and with what CAT tool if there's any ?

Thanks in advance for your help !


[Edited at 2016-03-03 00:05 GMT]


Hi, Daphne,

Where did you find out about Netflix looking for translators? I'd tried at their site, even spoke to their operatore, but he didn't mention that. Thanks.


 
jbjb
jbjb  Identity Verified
Estonia
Local time: 17:33
Estonian to English
+ ...
netflix Apr 7, 2016

Netflix advertises regularly but they still handle only major languages. In Eastern Europe they are still at 10% localisation in the biggest market, Poland, so moving to the other 15-20 languages in the region will very much depend on the subscription rate in each country.
Maybe they made a mistake by expanding into 130 new territories in January. Up to that moment entry into each new market was an event. Now the event was expanding into 130 new markets but for each of these markets separa
... See more
Netflix advertises regularly but they still handle only major languages. In Eastern Europe they are still at 10% localisation in the biggest market, Poland, so moving to the other 15-20 languages in the region will very much depend on the subscription rate in each country.
Maybe they made a mistake by expanding into 130 new territories in January. Up to that moment entry into each new market was an event. Now the event was expanding into 130 new markets but for each of these markets separately it was a non-event - people everywhere subscribing for the first free month but then discovering that there's no localisation, little content - no reason to remain a paying customer.
Now the big event for each market will have to be "okay, we came to your market x months ago but now we actually started to offer your language and more content, so please subscribe again, now it's actually worth it".
I somehow suspect that many Eastern European languages will never become worth investing into translations or it will take years to achieve.
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gkita_fluency
gkita_fluency
United States
Local time: 08:33
English to Spanish
+ ...
Subtitle Formats Supported in Fluency Now May 13, 2016

Georgi Kovachev wrote:

Hi,

As far as I know, Fluency Now can handle .srt files, but I have no experience in terms of this functionality.

Could you test it – if you have any .srt files available, I do not – and give us feedback. Thanks in advance in this respect.


Fluency Now directly supports subtitles in a couple of different formats. First, you have the SubRip text format (*.srt), which you were referring to. Fluency Now also supports the Advanced SubStation Alpha format (*.ass).

When opening one of those file types in Fluency Now, only the text will be displayed and translatable, while the time codes will be hidden from your view. This makes it easy to know what needs to be translated, and you won't need to comb through time codes to find the translatable text.

If you run a web search for something like 'free srt download', you should be able to find some free srt files to test with.

For more information or additional questions, please let us know at [email protected].

Greg Kita
Fluency Support


 
Monica Paolillo
Monica Paolillo
Italy
Local time: 16:33
English to Italian
+ ...
No use to translate the text May 16, 2016

without watching the video AT THE SAME TIME.

The video is an integral part of the creative translation process guiding you through choices such as the use of a singular/plural noun or masculine or feminine et cetera. If you don't simultaneously watch the scenes either your quality will be impaired or you will take ages to produce equivalent quality having to shift between your CAT interface and the video back and forth. The use of CAT tools is also hardly any help because you very r
... See more
without watching the video AT THE SAME TIME.

The video is an integral part of the creative translation process guiding you through choices such as the use of a singular/plural noun or masculine or feminine et cetera. If you don't simultaneously watch the scenes either your quality will be impaired or you will take ages to produce equivalent quality having to shift between your CAT interface and the video back and forth. The use of CAT tools is also hardly any help because you very rarely find repetitions in subtitling...







gkita_fluency wrote:

Georgi Kovachev wrote:

Hi,

As far as I know, Fluency Now can handle .srt files, but I have no experience in terms of this functionality.

Could you test it – if you have any .srt files available, I do not – and give us feedback. Thanks in advance in this respect.


Fluency Now directly supports subtitles in a couple of different formats. First, you have the SubRip text format (*.srt), which you were referring to. Fluency Now also supports the Advanced SubStation Alpha format (*.ass).

When opening one of those file types in Fluency Now, only the text will be displayed and translatable, while the time codes will be hidden from your view. This makes it easy to know what needs to be translated, and you won't need to comb through time codes to find the translatable text.

If you run a web search for something like 'free srt download', you should be able to find some free srt files to test with.

For more information or additional questions, please let us know at [email protected].

Greg Kita
Fluency Support


[Edited at 2016-05-16 15:23 GMT]
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José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 12:33
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Definitely! May 16, 2016

Monica Paolillo wrote:

No use to translate the text

without watching the video AT THE SAME TIME.

The video is an integral part of the creative translation process guiding you through choices such as the use of a singular/plural noun or masculine or feminine et cetera. If you don't simultaneously watch the scenes either your quality will be impaired or you will take ages to produce equivalent quality having to shift between your CAT interface and the video back and forth. The use of CAT tools is also hardly any help because you very rarely find repetitions in subtitling...


For the sake of newcomers, my workflow to translate videos for dubbing, back in 1987 (I only got started in subtitling in 2004):

1. Transfer the audio from VHS to ¼" open-reel audio tape (these brave recorders could withstand PLAY-STOP-REW-PLAY cycles for years).
2. Translate, using an Apple II computer (unable to play video, especially analog).
3. Print out the dubbing script using a dot-matrix printer.
4. Check the script watching the video on a VHS VCR and TV, scribbling changes on the printout. Frequent pauses.
5. Implementing those changes on the computer.
6. Print out the final dubbing script with the dot-matrix printer and hand-deliver.

Some colleagues did it directly from a VCR and a TV beside the computer. One of them told me, "I bust one VHS VCR (US$ 800 then) per year; it's part of my cost of doing this kind of business."

Nowadays I have everything on one PC screen, and the audio on earphones. The things that have vanished are printing and the physical delivery.


 


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Are there any CAT tools for subtitling?







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