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is it possible to translate the audio of movie into other language?

dear friends

need to know if there is any tool where the audio dialogues of any video or movie can be translated into other language? 

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Thank you for this interesting question, M. Usama.


What you describe may not be possible right now,  However, AI now enables people to make celebrities say what they never said in their own voice - see Watch Jordan Peele use AI to make Barack Obama deliver a PSA about fake news (James Vincent, The Verge) Apr 17, 2018). As to the audio fake, it works by storing speech fragments together with the relevant text transcript in a database. Then the text transcript can be modified, and the new transcript gets voiced by an app that uses the database.


So it's not entirely inconceivable that in future, the same pattern could be used to artificially make people  say translated versions of what they actually said. Nevertheless, there are hurdles: pitch patterns and word lengths are language-related. So keeping them identically in the translation would probably sound rather weird.


Best,


Claude

You can translate multi subtitles at once on this websites Subtitles translator and Multi subtiles translator

Thank you for your input, apolon666. 


However, this discussion is about translating audio in one language into audio in another language.


I don't quite understand the point of the websites you linked: they translate via Google Translate - but then, you can just as well directly upload your subtitle file to Google Translate. So what's the point of going via an intermediary?


Best


Claude

Hey! 


So here is my take on it. 


The simplest way and fast way to do it is to subtitle the video and then translate the subtitles into your desired language. But from the above comments, I suspect that this is not the result you are looking for.


The next way to do it is by swapping the audio track. This is fine if your video is just one person talking and the video is short, but doing this for a whole feature film will be really challenging as will cost a lot due to the production value. 


Text to speech services have come on a long way in the last few years, but I think we are good 1-2 years away from this being used for this kind of use case - Check out overdub, they have the best text to voice in production. 

Thank you for your suggestion Sabba Keynejad: this is similar to what I suggested in my 2nd reply to Dr Manish Jain, except for the links to Veed.io and Descript's Overdub


Unfortunately I was unable to use either: in Veed.io, the video wouldn't upload, and Descript seems to only work with Windows (pity, it seems really great)


So I would still suggest 


  1. uploading the video to YouTube to get it automatically captioned, 
  2. downloading the automatic captions from YouTube studio > subtitles > click on the 3 dots next to the captions > choose download
  3.  resaving the automatic captions, changing the extension to .txt (UTF-8 encoded)  so you can
  4. upload the .txt file translated to Google Translate and have it translated
  5. copy te translation, paste it into a text editor like Notes of Gedit, save it as a UTF-8 encoded text file, but with the extension of the original automatic captions.
  6. Do the text to speech.


Point 2 to 5 can be simplified by inputting the video's URL to Downsub: it will automatically offer you the automatic captions and many of their automatic translations.


Best


Claude


Perhaps this movie maker online can do it? 

Thank you for your suggestion, Mario Gomes Cavalcanti.


However, the site you linked to does not mention translation, let alone translating audio. 


Best,


Claude

Yes, I really want to know if it's possible I really need it.


Thanks for your comment, Ayesha,


However the site you linked did not even have anything to do with video, so I removed the link. As to translating audio, please see my previous replies.


Best


Claude

Hi.I have begun using Amara to translate and subtitle a video that has no human-inserted English captions, only auto. I know the auto isn't great but is there a way to have it inserted in the translation platform, it would greatly facilitate my translation, of course while listening to the audio as well. Thank you,Elisa

Dear Manish Jain,

You can do that humanly with Amara. For longish videos, it's usually simpler to start by making captions (subtitles in the original language) and then translate them. For shorter ones, you can directly translate from the video. Either way once your translated subtitles are ready you can download them as TXT i.e. without time codes.  You can get started here: https://amara.org/en/videos/create/

Now if you want something more automated, there are solutions outside Amara. Please note that the more automated the process, the more unsatisfactory the result:
  1. Fully automated (error prone): you upload the video to YouTube (YT), wait until the YT software has produced automatic subtitles; you download them from the video's admin interface -> Captions or Subtitles tab, and then you get them automatically translated from YT.
  2. Corrected captions (more accurate): you upload the video to YouTube, wait until the YT software has produced automatic subtitles; you edit them into accuracy from video's admin interface -> Captions or Subtitles tab.
  3. YT automation & Amara (easier editing & translation): Like 2, but download the subtitle file from YT and upload to Amara; use the Amara editor to improve the captions and/or add translated subtitles.

In addition to Amara, there are other tools that might help with improving YT automated captions, for instance NoMoreCraptions or DIYCaptions. Try both and see if either suits you better.


I hope this helps a bit,


Claude Almansi

 

hi almansi

thank u so much for ur inputs.

just to clarify, my query was not about subtitles but towards dialogues only. I mean if we can translate the spoken audio dialogues into audio dialogues of another language through the use of amara or any other software.

This query is with specific reference to audio described movies for blind people who cant see subtitles and they experience the movie on the basis of audio dialogues and audio description interspersed between two dialogues.

I hope I m clearer.

with regards

dr manish jain

Thank you for the clarification, Dr Manish Jain, Sorry I misunderstood you. I hope I'm getting it right now. Yes, translated subtitles made with Amara are texts, and as such they can be turned into audio files via text-to-speech, like any text. Several TTS providers offer an online trial version where you can download the result as an audio file: for instance iSpeech can do that in several languages. Or you could use the TTS accessibility feature of your computer system, and record the output.

Question, though: TTS voices are usually flat, so it's OK to have short audio description parts generated by TTS - but wouldn't it be rather boring if done for the entire translated dialog? I.e. wouldn't a blind person prefer to have the whole translation provided as text, which they could then read with their own TTS software, accelerating it as they wish, being able to skip by search etc?

Just wondering,

Claude

 

How do I get paid for the project and video translated. What is the pay per job done

Thank you for your question, Mohamed.


If you want to make paid translations for Amara's On Demand service, please apply from this Recruitment page: someone will contact you and give you info about pay.


If you mean translating subtitles for someone else, you will have to discuss a tariff directly with them.


Best,


Claude

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