Translation for editing

[Vedran Rupic]

I have a lot of clips that are to be edited but they need to be translated before anything can happen.
What are my options in order to for the editor to understand what is being said?
I was thinking about a couple of options:
either i get a subtitle software or a screencapture software and let the translator speak in the translation over the original clip..
What is the fastest/best way to do this?

Kindest regards,

Vedran

[Ervin Farkas]

Vedran, your post is not specific enough for us to understand what you need.

What is your final product? Is it the original video with another language, or the video with the original language and you only need the new language for the editor to understand?

[Vedran Rupic]

Sorry for that, was a little stressed when i composed that thread.

The thing is, I have shoot a documentary, it's in 5 different languages, the editor speaks only one of them. He needs to be able to edit the footage so he needs to be able to understand what is being said. So I have translators who will help me make these "offline" translations, that syncs the video with the translated text. Just so the editor can go nuts and doesn't have to worry about building a fractured film with total nonsense. To make it short, I need my footage to be accompanied by a translation for him to edit. The final movie is going to be translated by "professionals" at a post facility.

regards

[Giroud Francois]

since DV can accept 4 sound track, you can add the translation to the original clip, then the editor just need to switch the tracks to get either original or translated sound.
a simpler way would be to use the stereo (left is original, right is translated)

[Vedran Rupic]

Thats sounds like a good option, how would I record an additional track to a clip thats already in stereo? and the sound is split meaning i have diffrent take up on the channels. How would I do, and what software should be used to be able to ad an extra track? I would like a "real-time" like workflow to minimize post work with aligning the tracks etc...

[Giroud Francois]

most of camera are not able to record 4 tracks at same time, but some allows to dub a video by selecting another track.
in any case capturing to a pc and adding the 3rd track should be easy.
the only problem is that usually in DV format , audio is recorded at 16 bit 48khz and this format allows only 2 tracks.
To get track 3+4 available, you need to switch to the 12 bit 32Khz mode and that is not good for quality/compatibility.
Fortunately that is only if you need to record back to tape.
the AVI format can accept many audio track, so if you capture DV to your computer, add the 3rd audio track and save to a format that is better than DV codec, you can have as many audio track you need.
a good codec would be the free huffyuv. I am not sur you can even try DV codec with 3 tracks at 16 bit 48Khz, i need to test.
Mpeg2 with hi-bandwith could be a solution too (you can even use subtitles).
this utility allows to add audio files to a video file.
http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/amg/

you could try to add an audio track to an AVI file and see when you load it into your video editing app. if it shows 3 tracks.

to create the track, you could just play the video on the pc or camera while reading/recording the translation.
then you just have to mix the audio file with the video.

[Ervin Farkas]

Vedran, if you are not only shooting but also editing, the easiest way is to download the video+audio into your NLE and add an additional track of audio, before handing over the hard drive to the editor. This way, the editor can turn off the original audio and edit based on the second language - then delete the second language and enable the original one (or add the "new" new language).

If you're not editing at all yourself, and you give your tapes to the editor, you can still record audio with timecode in an application like Adobe Audition for example, and give that along with your tapes to the editor so he can sync it to the original video+audio.

Hope this makes sens.

[Giroud Francois]

i made some test with AVI mux and DV files.
it is ok to put any additional sound in an AVI file with AVI mux.
the problem is that the track is added to the avi, not to the DV stream.
I try virtualdub, premiere 6.5, ppro1.5, ppro2.0 and all simply ignore this additional track since they are looking what is in the DV stream , not in the avi file.
windows mediaplayer is reading all, mixing down all the sound track together, so there is no way to select one or another.
I think it is necessary to include the additional soundtrack inside the DV stream, not in the avi, and in this case we must revert to 12bit 32Khz format.

[Vedran Rupic]

I decided to go with a subtitle solution. I'm printing in a subtitle program and saving as .sub, if anyone else has tips to improve the overall speed, I would be very glad.