Expanding into Video Localization: Opportunities and Challenges for LSPs (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: It's a very brief presentation. LSPs looking to enter video localization world already know its importance. Video content is in high demand with the rise of streaming services, online video platforms, and the use of video for corporate communications and marketing. The global video market is expanding rapidly. Video is a powerful tool, not only for storytelling, but also for education. It allows for a more immersive experience as it combines visual and auditory elements to convey information and emotions. The trend towards video content is not limited to entertainment, of course. Many companies, organizations, and institutions are also using video as a way to communicate with their audiences, whether it's through explainer videos, product demonstrations, advertising campaigns. In fact, the use of video in corporate communications is expected to grow significantly in the next few years. This, of course, presents a unique opportunity for LSPs. By expanding into video localization, you can diversify your revenue streams and become more competitive in the market, as you'll have an advantage over LSPs that only offer text-based localization services. This trend is obvious, for example, in NIMT's 2022 analysis you can see on screen. This is the analysis of the language services industry. We can see that in the third place, 71.3% of the providers they surveyed provide subtitling services, and dubbing and voiceover are offered by 60.5% of LSPs. Video localization can be more complex and challenging than text localization, but let's see first which are the main modes. So, adding text or voice to a video is normally done to make it accessible. Either to audiences who don't speak the original languages, that is for translation purposes, or who do not have access to the audio or the image, in other words, for accessibility purposes, for the blind or for the hearing impaired. So, we have dubbing, which is the process of replacing the original audio track with a new audio track in another language. High quality dubbing requires lip synchronization, which is a very demanding process. And although there are online tools, it is traditionally done in a dubbing studio. This means that we need more resources. It's a process that involves a team of voice talents, a director. It's a big, larger team than the one in subtitling. On the other hand, voiceover again involves a new audio track, but usually the original audio can be heard in the background. There's no lip synchronization and it's often used in documentaries, corporate videos and educational videos. And it's of course much cheaper than dubbing. Subtitling is the process of displaying written text on a screen. And it can either be to translate the dialogue or to provide a transcription of the audio for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Proper SDH, we call it, subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing, we call it SDH. And proper SDH includes cues for plot pertinent sound effects. I'm sure you're all aware of such cues like a gunshot, car engine revving, music, songs, etc. And last but not least, we have audio description, which is a service for the blind. The process is to add verbal descriptions or visual elements on the video, in the video, such as characters, actions and settings, so that people who are visually impaired can follow what's happening on screen.