Subtitles are the first thing MovieCineLab extracts from a film, and the basis for everything else: dubbing, screenplay and novel all start there. That's why they're included and cost no minutes from your pack. To add a film, though, you do need minutes in your pack.
How they're made
As soon as you upload the film, the audio is transcribed line by line, with the exact time each line starts and ends. Then there's a second listen, which fixes misheard words by comparing them with the rest of the film. These are mostly characters' names, places and old-fashioned words, the ones automatic transcription gets wrong most often. Only then are the lines translated.
For a 90-minute film the analysis takes about twenty minutes, and the subtitles arrive a few minutes later. You don't need to keep the page open.
Which languages
- In the film's own language, which we detect automatically among a great many: English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese and plenty more.
- Translated into Italian, English, French, Spanish and German.
- In the language of every dubbing: if you dub the film into Portuguese, Polish, Russian or Romanian, you also get subtitles in that language.
What they look like
They're SRT files, the plain-text format read by VLC, TVs, editing software and almost every player. Just put them next to the video with the same name, or load them from the subtitles menu. Here are five real entries from the English subtitles of the example film Night of the Living Dead, exactly as they appear in the file:
30
00:02:28,580 --> 00:02:29,780
Hey, you're still afraid.
31
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:31,140
Stop it now.
32
00:02:31,220 --> 00:02:31,800
I mean it.
33
00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:38,680
They're coming to get you, Barbara.
34
00:02:39,920 --> 00:02:40,500
Stop it.
Each subtitle has its number, start and end times down to the millisecond, and the text.
What they're for
Watching a foreign film in the original and understanding everything. Preparing a screening for a film club or a class. Learning a language: watch the film in the original with subtitles in the same language, then switch to your own. And for people who work on films, as the basis for a translation or a revised edition. They are dialogue subtitles: they don't describe sounds and noises the way subtitles for deaf viewers do.
And then?
From the same film, without uploading it again, you can ask for multi-voice dubbing, the screenplay or the novel. The original film stays available for 48 hours after the last job; the subtitles stay in your account until you delete them.