Subtitles generated from audio and video are translated into the target language by a translation channel, and then dubbed. Obviously, the translation result directly affects the dubbing effect.

Translation channels can be divided into traditional translation and AI translation:

• Traditional translation: Google Translate, Microsoft Translator, DeepL, Baidu Translate, Tencent Translate
• AI translation: ChatGPT, Gemini, AzureGPT, 302.ai, various domestic AIs, local large models

By charging situation

• Free unlimited: Google, Microsoft
• Free quota: Baidu Translate, Tencent Translate, various domestic AIs, Gemini
• Paid: Deepl, ChatGPT, AzureGPT, Gemini

By whether an agent is needed

Agent required: Google, ChatGPT, Gemini No agent required: Domestic translation, deepl

The software supports two translation methods

• 1. Submit only the pure text in the subtitles to the translation channel and replace the original text in the subtitles with the translation result

All traditional translation channels (except Google) use this method

• Advantages: Ensure that the translation result is a valid srt subtitle format; save translation characters.
• Disadvantages: When the number of lines of the translation result and the original text do not match, it will be forced to translate one line at a time, resulting in loss of context and poor effect.

Under this translation method, there may be too many blank lines, and because they do not have line numbers, it is impossible to determine which line the blank line belongs to, so it can only be placed at the end, which may cause subtitle confusion. Therefore, when blank lines appear, it will be forced to re-translate line by line, losing context association

• 2. Submit the complete srt subtitle format to the translation channel, including line numbers, timestamps and other content that does not need to be translated

• Advantages: Better contextual association, avoid too many blank lines
• Disadvantages: Waste tokens; insufficiently intelligent AI may return incorrect srt formats, such as merging the original single-line number line into the next line, converting English symbols in the timestamp into Chinese, etc., resulting in the return result is no longer a legal srt, and parsing errors occur.

This method may still return blank lines, but it does not affect the effect, because the blank line has a legal number line and timestamp, but for semantic association, the translation result of the line is merged into the previous line, especially when the line is a lonely one or two words.

By default, AI translation and Google channels use this translation method. Open Menu-Tools/Options-Advanced Options-Subtitle Translation-Send Complete Subtitle Content when AI Translating, and uncheck it to use the first translation method.

Number of translations at a time

Menu-Tools/Options-Advanced Options-Subtitle Translation-Number of Subtitles to Translate Simultaneously, you can set how many subtitles to translate in batches at a time. The larger the number, the faster the translation, and the better the context association. However, too large a number may exceed the character limit of the corresponding channel, and the number of blank lines may increase.

Summary of translation channel selection

• If you want to be completely free and unlimited, Google (requires a proxy) is the first choice, followed by Microsoft Translator

• Completely free and accept frequency quota restrictions, domestic AI merchants such as deepseek.com kimi.moonshot.cn 302.ai are the first choice, followed by Tencent Translate, Baidu Translate, Gemini (requires a proxy)

• When there is no proxy, domestic AI merchants are the first choice, followed by Microsoft Translator Tencent Translate Baidu Translate, etc.

• If you want the best effect, Openai ChatGPT is the first choice. If you don’t have a paid account, you can choose a third-party transit API, such as 302.ai; secondly, Gemini (requires a proxy), and then domestic AI merchants

• Not recommended: DeepLx, which is essentially illegally using free deepl traffic. Because there are many subtitle strips and there will be multiple requests in a short time, the local deployment will be quickly blocked by deepl ip and cannot be used

• Not recommended: Local large model translation. Limited by computer resources, the models deployed locally are generally small in scale and not intelligent enough, and it is very likely that the translation result format will be chaotic. If you insist on using it, please Menu-Tools/Options-Advanced Options-Subtitle Translation-Send Complete Subtitle Content when AI Translating, uncheck it, and set Number of Subtitles to Translate Simultaneously to 5 or less.

• In extreme cases, if you want to translate only one line at a time to ensure that the format is 100% correct and there are no blank lines, set Menu-Tools/Options-Advanced Options-Subtitle Translation-Number of Subtitles to Translate Simultaneously to 1. Trade quality for perfect format.

How to use various domestic AI merchants in the software

Make sure that the api provided by the merchant is compatible with openai, copy the merchant's api address, sk and model name, and open the software Translation Settings-OpenAI ChatGPT and Compatible API

Fill in the api address specified by the merchant in API URL, fill in the provided key in SK, fill in the model name in the large text box, and then select it in the "Select Model" drop-down box, and save it after testing that there is no problem.