
Industry-wide, there is a sharp increase in subtitling "payload" to expand international distribution for both linear playout and new media services. Localising content for wider distribution by adding subtitles has previously been an inefficient process.
Subtitling is a surprisingly creative task and essential to expand multi-language operations. Style and layout are often intrinsic to a specific channel's presentation. Each genre and language has a preferred pace to complement the editing and on-screen action. Incorrect or late subtitles may prevent a programme reaching its audience and can incur penalties for service providers. Mediator increases efficiency by initiating subtitling at the correct stage in the workflow and reduces errors by securing their re-association with the right version of source content. Our customers regularly manage multi-channel operations with thousands of subtitles each week.
Mediator directly integrates the management of subtitles and voice-overs for international distribution at the optimal stage in the workflow. Subtitles are requested in accordance with the schedule and channel distribution pattern. Following successful QC and compliance approval of source material, Mediator initiates the creation of timecoded browse files.
These are distributed securely to subtitling creation systems in-house or to a subtitling service provider. Mediator then receives completed subtitle files and can pass these through a simple QC and approvals workflow before delivering them to the subtitle insertion infrastructure to secure the final playout and publishing.
Systems from multiple third party subtitling equipment suppliers can be used within the same system. Mediator also gives an audit trail of subtitle workflow just like any workflow action to track and deal with random or persistent errors.