Subtitling Guidelines

The following guidelines will be applied to your subtitles.

If you need to change any of these guidelines, please inform us as soon as possible at client-services@amara.org

SDH (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing)
- Standard process for all captions AND subtitle translation
- This means your captions and subtitles will include:
  - SDH tags to identify speakers not visually clear to clarify who is speaking. For example:
    - (Travis) Wait for me!
    - (man) Is anybody out there?!
  - SDH tags to describe sounds and music relevant to the plot of the video and cannot be visually identified. For example:
    - (water dripping)
    - (wheels screeching)
  - Italics will be used when the speaker is not present in the scene (like flashbacks, narration, etc.)
Non-SDH (available in AOD only upon request)
- This means none of the SDH tags described above are included in your captions or subtitles.
Other notable guidelines
- Subtitle length is 42 character maximum per line (may vary slightly for some languages)
- 2-line maximum per subtitle
- Reading speed - 25 characters per second (may vary slightly for some languages)
- Subtitles will be on screen - minimum 1 second, maximum of 7 seconds.

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