Introducing Netflix Timed Text Authoring Lineage
Updated: Jul 20, 2022
By: Bhanu Srikanth, Andy Swan, Casey Wilms, Patrick Pearson
Originally published in Netflix Technology Blog
The Art of Dubbing and Subtitling
Dubbing and subtitling are inherently creative processes. At Netflix, we strive to make shows as joyful to watch in every language as in the original language, whether a member watches with original or dubbed audio, closed captions, forced narratives, subtitles or any combination they prefer. Capturing creative vision and nuances in translation is critical to achieving this goal.
Creating a dub or a subtitle is a complex, multi-step process that involves:
Transcribing and timing the dialogue in the original language from a completed show to create a source transcription text
Notating dialogue events with character information and other annotations
Generating localization notes to guide further adaptation
Translating the dialogue to a target language
Adapting the translation to the dubbing and subtitling specifications; ex. matching the actor’s lip movements in the case of dubs and considering reading speeds and shot changes for subtitles
Prompting Tools
As an initial step, we worked closely with several dubbing technology providers to incorporate TTAL into their product, using JSON as the underlying format.
We appreciate the efforts put forth by the developers of these products for test-driving TTAL and giving us crucial feedback to improve it.
Third-party tools that support import and export of scripts in TTAL are:
VoiceQ version 4.7.2 & above
Mosaic 2.0
ADR Master 2
Nuendo, a Netflix Production Technology Alliance partner product, is currently being updated to include support for TTAL.
Originally published by Netflix
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