What are the pros and cons of dubbing or subtitle translation for multimedia translation?

Answer 1

Online video content is becoming more prevalent, and with its ever-increasing presence, companies looking to enhance the views of their online videos need to find more ways to distribute their video content. Basically they have two options how to express the translated text in an online video, and this applies to all video content: dubbed or subtitled. Using subtitles to translate text is placed at the bottom of the screen, and dubbing in line with what's on the screen involves removing the original audio track and replacing it with the translated audio track. But there are pros and cons to both options, so let's briefly analyze them.

①The advantages of dubbing:

Content can be enjoyed even without looking at the screen, such as viewing other parts of a website; intonation can reflect a more natural intonation for speakers of the target language; word selection is less restrictive with dubbing.

②Disadvantages of dubbing:

A sometimes annoying tone to the audience: it means they see a mouth moving, but the words don't match it; ambient noise and sounds not recorded live.

③Subtitle advantages:

Content can be enjoyed even when the sound is turned off; video can be easily paused to focus on a sentence when it is displayed on the screen; the original pitch and pressure of the speaker sound is maintained.

④ Disadvantages of subtitles:

Subtitles provide more clutter on the screen, which is especially annoying on a small screen like a website; viewers must be literate to understand the choice of text and shortened versions of the content to fit better on the screen; subtitles Means the viewer must always watch the screen.

Obviously both dubbing and subtitles have other drawbacks and benefits and these will be up to the viewer, it is up to the parties concerned to make the appropriate choice. The company's translation of their video before sending it, has to remember that the text used for subtitles is not the same as the text used for dubbing.