Khmer subtitling services

Because the line spacing was set for Latin text. A Khmer syllable can stack a vowel sign above the base and one or two subscript consonants below it, so the written unit reaches further up and further down than any letter the spacing was designed around. Raise the leading and the collision disappears. Where a platform will not let you raise it, burnt-in captions settle the spacing at delivery instead.

The font is compensating. To fit a four or five level stack inside the vertical space a Latin face reserves for one letter, some Khmer fonts shrink the whole cluster, and at subtitle size the result stops being readable even though every character is present and correct. The fix is a face designed for Khmer metrics plus room in the box, which we agree before the first cue is timed.

One, wherever the dialogue allows it. In Latin script a second line costs you a strip of picture; in Khmer it costs more, because each line is taller to begin with and the gap between them has to be wider. So our subtitlers condense into a single line as the default and use the pair when a cue genuinely carries two beats rather than because the text happened to run over.

Three things: which font it uses or substitutes, what line height it applies, and whether either can be overridden. Those answers decide whether we deliver a sidecar file or burn the captions into the picture, and they are worth a five-minute check at the brief. Send a link or a test clip and we will look at the Khmer on it ourselves.

Rates open at £20 a minute of running video. Four things move that figure: the length of the piece, whether the Khmer audio has to be typed up before anyone spots it, whether an accessibility version or a burnt-in master is part of the order, and how long the format list runs. Working out the line spacing and proving it is inside the rate. Quotes are itemised and the Price Match Promise stands behind them.

Yes, and a good share of our Khmer work is exactly that. Same-language captions and SDH carry the dialogue plus speaker labels and the sounds that carry meaning, which is what an accessibility review checks for. One thing to plan for: SDH lines are denser, so the spacing question on this page gets sharper rather than easier when the content is Khmer to begin with.

Usually a great deal of use, and it shortens the job. Our subtitlers spot your file to picture and rebuild the lines, and the opening check is whether the coeng sequences are still intact — an invisible character is the first casualty of a careless save, and the text looks nearly right without it. If nothing exists yet, we type the Khmer audio up in house.

It does, in all three, along with Avid and the caption editors built into the streaming platforms. SRT, VTT, STL and TTML all carry Khmer without trouble. Be careful about one thing: an editing timeline previews at whatever line height it likes, so approval there proves nothing about the viewer's screen. A burnt-in master avoids the question if you would rather not test it.