Subtitling

Subtitles are a way to show text on the screen, synchronized with the video. Subtitles can either be in the same language as the audio track, or a different language, depending on your needs.

Consider that there are over 10 million people in the United States with moderate to severe hearing losses, who depend on text on the screen to understand the content of the audio track on the screen. Add in people who speak English as a Second Language (ESL) – and you can see there is a huge percentage of people who will benefit from having DVD content be subtitled.

Subtitling is preferred over closed captioning because no special decoding equipment is necessary. The subtitles can be visible using portable DVD players, laptops, as well as home DVD players. We can even show you how to include subtitling on your video iPod programs!

See this example, from David Hobby’s recent DVD series on using flash off camera:

Rates for standard subtitling are $10 / minute of video. For example, if you have a 60 minute video, we will provide subtitles for you for $600. We can provide a variety of outputs to suit your post-production process.

This is a trivial cost when you consider the number of people who are unable to enjoy your DVD/video without the subtitles!

Contact us for more information on how we can subtitle your project.

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Testimonial:

I am the author of the DVDs mentioned above. FWIW, I was at first a little hesitant to include subtitles — we had an 8-DVD project, so the perceived costs added up.

But given the cost involved and the response we have gotten, I am absolutely sure it was the right thing to do from a financial perspective. And, it is clearly just “the right thing to do,” too.

FYI, the readers who had given us feedback WRT the subtitling are about 1/3 hearing-loss related and about 2/3 ESL folks. Either way, I am very glad we did it.

-David Hobby