Key Quality Checking Guidelines – Subtitling/Closed captioning

Anyone with experience in subtitling and/or closed captioning knows and understands only too well the importance of performing a thorough quality check of the file before submitting the final project to the client.

To ensure a file is properly quality checked, there are a number points that we need to take into consideration.

Before you start working on any file, make sure you have read all the target language specifications. Pay special attention to: Reading Speed, Character limitation, Italics, Continuity, Dual Speakers, Forced Narratives, Punctuation and Quotes.

• Position the subtitle according to the client’s specs
  • Horizontally (alignment: left, centred, left-centred, right)
  • Vertically (bottom or top)
• Format/style. Formats captions according to the client’s specs.
  • Format in italics
  • Format Forced Narratives (All caps, mixed case…)
  • Format songs
  • Format dual speaker subs (dialogue captions)
• Timing
  • Check cues (in and out) according to the start and end of pronunciation
  • Shot changes
  • Important (plot relevant) speech pauses
  • Min/max durations
• Text
  • Fix line breaks (between subs and between lines within each sub) according to units of sense and punctuation.
  • Check ellipses
  • Keep consistent naming
  • In-depth proofreading: Punctuation and typos

Final quality checks:

• Inconsistent cues, gaps between subtitles, raised subtitles, subtitles without text, non-printable characters.

Remember to always check the video until the very end of the video(including credits): Look for extra footage, dialogues, ending credits’ songs, etc.