The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2020 - 30

A LOOK AT SUBTITLING AND CLOSED-CAPTIONING SOFTWARE continued
comparison of the features of three free and
three commercial brands. These include:

Figure 1: An early subtitling format on paper (note the translation is divided by letter)
translators increased from dozens of
specialized linguists to hundreds.
Cloud-Based: Cloud-based subtitling
software finished opening the doors for
audiovisual translators. Larger clients now
have their own subtitling software. Medium
clients still pay for licenses for their linguists,
but more and more translators are buying
subtitling software, which allows them to
work for several clients. With the cloud, the
number of subtitling experts increased from
the hundreds to the thousands.

SUBTITLING SOFTWARE WISH LIST
Now that you have an idea of how
much technology has progressed in
this field, let's explore what features are
indispensable in today's software. During
my research for this article, I selected
eight basic features I considered a must
in subtitling software. This might not
seem so important to those who've been
using subtitling programs for a while, but
it's very important for companies who
are just starting to develop their own.
The architecture of a new program must
consider a solution for all these features
at the front end of the project or risk very
expensive patches at the back end.
Free or Affordable: This goes
without saying. Some programs on the
market still make it unaffordable for the
average translator.
Spellchecker: Some programs have their
own spellchecker and others integrate
dictionaries from Word, Open Office, or
other open dictionaries.
Find and Replace, Undo and Redo,
Merge and Split: We tend to take these
30

The ATA Chronicle | March/April 2020

features for granted, but when you're
developing new software, these are very
hard to integrate into your program.
Audio Waveform: Certain software
programs offer a waveform feature. A
waveform is a visual representation of the
film's audio track that can be used to help
time the subtitle. Some consider this feature
a huge convenience, since you can drag and
position subtitles on the waveform, along
with their in and out times. I personally
don't like this method and don't use it. It's
probably due to my background, learning
how to time subtitles with a pause button
and a piece of paper. I can time by eye pretty
accurately within three frames of audio just
by looking at the timecode on screen. But
young audiovisual translators are used to
the waveform feature, and new developers
should include it in their programs.
Full-Screen Mode: Since context is
king in subtitling, the size of the screen
matters. This is more important nowadays
where, due to security concerns, linguists
receive heavily watermarked videos with
which to work. Some programs borrow
video players (e.g., VLC media player)
and some have them fully integrated.
Zero Mouse Interaction: I'm not talking
about an absolute zero, but as far away
from the mouse as we can get. The less
interaction our hand has with the mouse,
the faster we can type. The faster we can
type, the more money we can make.

COMPARING SUBTITLING SOFTWARE
After doing an extensive search of over 50
software programs, I decided to focus on a

■	

Freeware: Subtitle Edit, Subtitle
Workshop, and Aegisub

■	

Commercial: SubtitleNEXT, EZTitles,
and Ooona Tools

The results can be found in the table on
page 31.
If you decide to use cloud-based
software (e.g., Ooona Tools or the
online version of Subtitle Edit), I would
recommend reviewing the nondisclosure
agreements you've signed with your
clients, since these programs store
information on servers and not just on
your desktop. You could be breaking your
agreements without knowing it.

PRICING
Ooona Tools
http://bit.ly/Ooona-tools

Only the professional versions of Ooona
Tools have the waveform feature and
allow you to click and drag on it. Per
their website, the price range goes
from the Translate package ($12.00 per
month) to the Review Pro package ($450
per month).

SubtitleNEXT
http://bit.ly/SubtitleNEXT

Per their website, SubtitleNEXT has a
package called Air Live, which allows for
subtitle insertion during on-air playback.
You can buy SubtitleNEXT Novice
for $485. You can rent SubtitleNEXT
Explorer for $142 per month or buy
it for $1,881. Or you could buy the
SubtitleNEXT Expert bundle, which
includes all the plug-ins, for $3,807.

EZTitles
http://bit.ly/EZTitles

You can rent or own EZTitles. They have
six types of licenses from which to choose.
You can rent the TV, DVD, and Enterprise
packages for 80 to100 euros per month.
The purchase price ranges from 1,620
euros for their Basic package to 2,380
euros for their Enterprise package. Only
TV and Enterprise licenses have closedcaption capabilities.
www.atanet.org
http://www.bit.ly/Ooona-tools http://www.bit.ly/SubtitleNEXT http://www.bit.ly/EZTitles http://www.atanet.org
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