Submitted 3 days ago by Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/43980617
And are translations always done based on the native language or do they translate from e.g. the English subtitle to another language? Asking because this definitely feels like something they would skimp out on if they could.
I assume that AI got used for the release of Hundreds of Beavers because the captions are completely fucking wrong on the little amount of dialogue there actually is in the film.
Subtitles on dubbed stuff is weird. The English voice over and the English subtitles are very different from eachother, and I assume what they’re translating from is a 3rd different thing altogether.
The voice-over is usually trying to approximate the lip movements and timing as well as the meaning.
To be clear, Hundreds of Beavers has subtitles in it’s original language (English) and it’s still completely fucking wrong.
Subtitles and closed captioning is generally handled by the producers of the media. I’d it’s a Netflix original, Netflix hires someone to transcribe. If the media was purchased or rented from day Fox or Paramount or MGM, the original producers would have been responsible for it.
I’ve certainly seen some subtitles that have to be ai generated based on the ridiculous number of homophones and sound alike captions
The same way pirates do sometimes
These are delivered to the streaming service from the production company supplying the content. Depending on the production company they can have various sources. Some are made from the shooting script, some are transcribed either manually or via ai. Some go through a full quality check before being delivered, some have no QC at all. It all depends on the production company. Theoretically most streaming services say they quality check the delivered subtitles but this is usually done automatically with very occasional manual checks. For subtitles not in the original language these are usually contracted to various subtitle translation companies, usually by the streaming service, but sometimes by the production company depending on the contract. These can vary in quality and price immensely.
It’s not AI. It’s just basic software.
Weird I had this conversation with my wife last night while watching Andor. Some of the subtitles come up for only half a second or are lagged behind the dialogue.
It reeks of Ai rubbish and would have been someone’s job previously. Not the most glamorous job I’m sure but still better then digging holes in a paddock.
yesman@lemmy.world 3 days ago
CC and subtitles are awesome. Making them cheap enough so that they’re universal even on cheap online content is one of the actual benefits to AI technology.
Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Completely machine translated subtitles often lack quality and nuance to their translations. I’d rather have a human getting paid to do proper subtitling instead. But yes, if the option is having zero subtitles instead, then sure. That’s not the case with Netflix etc though, they can definitely afford proper subtitling.
Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 days ago
You have to differentiate between closed caption subtitles and translated subtitles.
Automatically generated closed captions, for people with hearing impairments, where it’s just the words spoken transcribed, are indeed one thing that AI could hypothetically do. It can’t do it yet, at least not without supervision and human editing.
Excellent closed captions also include sound effects where necessary, colour coding, speaker names, tone indicators, they move the text around in screen to better show who’s talking - that’s something I can only see humans do.
Let’s shame anyone who uses AI to translate subtitles (or translate anything, really).
helvetpuli@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Most of us can’t read as quickly as we can absorb spoken language.
I learned this directly when I decided to create English subtitles for French films and TV as an exercise when I was trying to get from B2 to C1 in French. It was a good exercise, but the result was unusable because the text often goes by too quickly to read.
That’s when I understood that it really is an art.
The subtitle artist must make descriptions work, punch lines land, and reproduce dialog with the correct gravitas. And they have to do it while cutting 50 percent or more of a meaningful, culturally-grounded translation.
It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing an id-less ml model could ever do.
bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Of all the big services, Netflix subtitles are notoriously bad though. Like missing entire sentences or just flat out wrong.