3 Times Dialogue Replacement is a Great Dubbing Voice-Over Option

One of the hardest dubbing services to understand is dialogue replacement. For starters, users sometimes confuse it with lip-sync, since the two services have similar mixes – though very different priorities, workflows and results. It’s also not as widely used as other options like UN-style, though it’s an ideal localization solution for some kinds of content – and a cost-effective one as well.

This post will list the three times when dialogue replacement is a great video translation voiceover option.

[Average read time: 4 minutes]

What is dialogue replacement again?

When a professional foreign-language voice-over talents record dialogue replacement in the studio, their goal is to very roughly line up their voice-over with the original audio. This can be done block-by-block (for longer segments), sentence-by-sentence, or even phrase-by-phrase, depending on the content’s needs. The key is that this is not done in a frame-accurate way, in part because the foreign-language voiceover is not meant to actually synchronize with the on-screen speaker’s lips.

You can see this in the following skills training video, in which the English voice-over has been replaced with German. Notice that each sentence and phrase generally starts when the speaker begins to speak, but that no internal lip movements are matched, and no breaths are filled in:

This is the key to dialogue replacement, and the hardest part of it to understand. Why? There are two reasons. First, lip-sync can be notoriously bad when it’s done by non-professionals and with inadequate post-production, or when translations aren’t edited properly to match syllable count, pauses, major vocalizations. Second, for brief moments a dialogue replacement track can line up closely to the source English, especially for closely-related languages, or for translations with highly technical content in which there are very close cognates – creating the brief illusion of synchronization where there is none. Users who have seen examples both of these kinds of work can be forgiven their confusion.

But remember – it’s a separate service, with a very different process, which produces vastly different video deliverables.

So when is it just right for video translation?

There are two major pros when it comes to dialogue replacement. First, it’s relatively cost-effective, certainly more so than lip-sync, which requires more time in the studio and a much longer script editing timeline – this latter step can literally take days, as editors will re-write lines multiple times to get them to line up. Second, dialogue replacement allows for more translation accuracy, since scripts don’t have be re-written drastically, though they do have to be shortened sometimes to fit within the time allotted.

For these reasons it’s a great solution for the following content.

1. How-to and exercise videos

These videos often have on-screen speakers shot at medium or close-up, which is particularly difficult content when it comes to lip-sync, which can add cost. Also, they provide instructions that sometimes have to be followed exactly – think of a video on how change gas hoses – which means very little leeway when it comes to editing translations for sync. From a cost and accuracy perspective, lip-sync is often not an ideal service for these videos.

But even more than that, the videos are perfect for dialogue replacement because the audience focus is almost never on the lips of the presenters. In fact, exercise video instructors are often moving while they talk, which makes it nearly impossible to track their lips – especially if for audience members who are exercising along. But even when the presenter is stationary, as in cooking videos, most viewers are focusing on what they’re doing – for example, how they’re removing seeds from tomatoes. Audiences must actively focus on the action in the videos, or miss the instructional content completely.

This is also why subtitles – even though they’re very cost-effective – are not the best option here, since they take viewer attention away from the action in the frame, focusing it on text. To make matters worse, sometimes this subtitles text can occlude the images that viewers are supposed to be focusing in on.

2. Some e-Learning scenarios

Translation accuracy is crucial to the effectiveness of e-Learning scenarios. For example, in a customer interaction video for salespeople, you want the lines spoken by the actors to be exactly what the team should say out in the field. Any change in the translated lines to get them to synchronize to lip movements will affect how useful the video is as a learning tool. This applies to many other fields as well – legal compliance for large international corporations, soft skills training, technical training, or medical training. Moreover, e-Learning developers often have huge amounts of content, so that dialogue replacement can offer serious cost-effectiveness – for this reason alone this services should be taken into consideration e-Learning translation projects.

That said, lip-sync can be a good option if the developers want to stress video production, and if the content is more situational. For more on this service, check out our previous post, Lip-Sync Dubbing for e-Learning & Corporate Content.

3. On corporate content that’s animated

Animated content is slightly easier to dub because there aren’t real, human lip movements to match. This means that dialogue replacement on animations generally has pretty good results, without having to do all the work of lip-sync, and with better translation accuracy.  Keep in mind, though, that even though the overall sync will be better, it’s only relative to live-action content. If you really need lip-sync for animated content, dialogue replacement is not a viable proxy.

Finally, keep in mind that text-to-speech voices are a real option for dialogue replacement projects, especially when the videos are animated – in fact, you can see an example of a TTS an animated video on our text-to-speech page. TTS voices can add yet another cost-efficiency to video translation.

Prepare client expectations for dialogue replacement

Ultimately, the key to managing dialogue replacement projects is making sure that your clients understand that it’s not “low-cost” lip-sync, but a different service altogether, with different priorities and different workflows. Lip-sync focuses on re-creating the illusion of a particular filmed work – if you want your audience to believe they’re fighting dragons in Westeros, or in a light-saber duel with Darth Vader, then anything that maintains that illusion is appropriate in the localization process, including changing line translations drastically so they line up to character’s mouths.

Dialogue replacement has a completely different focus – conveying information accurately, in a way that still maintains audience engagement with a video. If you need your audience to know how to stretch properly to avoid injury during a workout, set up a pressure cooker correctly so it doesn’t explode, or share medical records while maintaining patient confidentiality, then translation accuracy is absolutely crucial to your video translation project. In these cases, dialogue replacement can really be the best option available.