Subtitling · Telugu
Telugu subtitling services
Telugu subtitling for corporate, eLearning, documentary, broadcast and advertising, written by native linguists, with the unit your character counts are measured in fixed before the first line is written. Telugu subtitles, voice over scripts and translation all sit inside one project.
About Telugu subtitling
42 characters of what, exactly?
The published Telugu subtitle guide sets a line at 42 characters and a reading speed at 22 characters a second. It does not say what a character is, and in Telugu that is not a quibble. What a reader treats as one unit is usually several code points: స్త్రీ is six code points and one unit, విద్యార్థి is ten code points and three, and ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్ is twelve and five.
So the same line of Telugu comes back with different numbers from different tools, and the numbers are not close to each other. One application charges six characters where another charges one, and because reading speed is that count divided by the duration, the characters-per-second figure inherits the whole discrepancy. A file that passes QC at the vendor can fail it at the client without a single word having changed.
At GoLocalise, we settle the unit before the work starts. Native Telugu subtitlers write to an agreed definition of a character, the checks run in the same unit your side will use, and we report both numbers in the handover so that nobody further down the chain has to guess which one a limit referred to.
Which do you need?
Open captions, closed captions or SDH
Three different deliverables that people often ask for by the wrong name. Here is the short version.
Open captions
Burnt inSubtitles burnt permanently into the picture. Nobody can switch them off, which is exactly what you want for social feeds that autoplay muted — and in Telugu it ends the argument about counting, because what ships is a picture rather than a text file somebody else will measure again.
- Always visible
- Nothing left to re-measure
- Delivered as a finished video file
Closed captions
SwitchableA separate file the viewer can turn on and off, and that can carry several languages at once. The standard for YouTube, Vimeo and the streaming platforms.
- Viewer controls them
- Multiple languages from one video
- Indexed by search engines
SDH
AccessibilitySubtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing: dialogue plus speaker IDs and the sound effects and music cues that carry meaning.
- Speaker identification
- Non-dialogue audio described
- Meets accessibility requirements
Subtitles or captions? The two terms are often used interchangeably. Strictly, subtitles translate the dialogue for viewers who can hear the audio, while captions are same-language and add speaker labels and sound cues for viewers who cannot. We produce either — translated Telugu subtitles or same-language Telugu captions and SDH — in whichever form your platform and audience require.
What we subtitle
Telugu subtitling for every kind of content
Telugu subtitling serves Andhra Pradesh and Telangana across corporate, education and government work as well as a very large film output, where files clear platform QC before anyone watches them. These are the formats we handle most.
Corporate & training video
Internal comms, onboarding and product training subtitled for global teams and LMS delivery.
eLearning & online courses
Timed, readable subtitles for course platforms, MOOCs and instructional video.
Documentary & factual
Festival, broadcast and streaming documentaries, including interview clean-up and on-screen text.
Advertising & social
Burnt-in captions for muted autoplay on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and paid social.
Streaming & OTT
Platform-spec subtitle and caption files for VOD, OTT and broadcast delivery.
Accessibility (SDH & closed captions)
Same-language SDH and closed captions to meet WCAG and accessibility requirements.
Events, webinars & conferences
Recorded talks, town halls and webinars captioned for on-demand viewing.
E-commerce & product video
Short product and explainer videos captioned to lift conversion and reach.
How can we help you?
Your project manager has everything covered
One point of contact from brief to delivery, and both a linguistic and a technical check on every file.
Brief review
We review your video, your audience and the player, starting with the unit your platform counts characters in.
Template and translation
Where needed, we create an English subtitle template first, then send it to a native Telugu subtitler.
Timing and quality checks
Subtitles are timed against the video and checked for reading speed and line length in the agreed unit, not in whichever one the tool defaults to.
Delivery and display check
Files delivered in the format you need, with the character and reading-speed counts reported in the unit they were measured in.
Our standards
The specs we work to
Readable subtitles are a matter of measurable limits, not opinion. These are the defaults we apply to Telugu unless your style guide says otherwise.
Maximum per line
Telugu platform guide limit
Maximum on screen
One line wherever the text fits
Reading speed
18 on children's programming
Minimum duration
Seven seconds maximum
These figures come from the published Telugu guide rather than our Latin defaults: 42 characters a line, two lines, **22 characters a second** and 18 on children's programming. The guide does not state the unit behind the numbers, so we do not assume one. We ask, we write to the answer, and the file goes out with both counts on it so that the next person in the chain is not guessing either.
Deliverables
Professional subtitle formats
We adapt your existing translations into subtitle format or create subtitles from scratch, in Telugu, English or any other language. And if the project needs a timed script or a plain document instead, we deliver that too.
Standard text-based
Compatible with most platforms and players.
Broadcast & professional
For broadcasters, post houses and streaming delivery specs.
Burnt-in video
A finished file with the subtitles baked into the picture, counts settled.
Need a different format? Convert SRT, VTT and more with our free subtitle converter →
| Where it's going | What we deliver |
|---|---|
| YouTube, Vimeo & LMS platforms | SRT or VTT closed captions |
| Netflix, Amazon & broadcast | IMSC, TTML or EBU-STL to platform spec |
| Instagram, TikTok & paid social | Burned-in captions in MP4 (open captions) |
| Premiere, Final Cut & DaVinci Resolve | SRT / VTT that import straight into your edit |
Not sure which you need? Tell us the destination platform and we deliver to its exact spec.
Telugu specifics
The standard has an answer, and not every tool has it yet
Around 83 million people speak Telugu natively, on the 2011 census. It is official in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Yanam, it is one of India's classical languages, and it is the fourth most spoken mother tongue in the country. It also has an unusually large film output, which means Telugu material tends to arrive already subtitled by somebody else, with limits applied under assumptions nobody wrote down at the time.
Unicode does define the unit. Its text segmentation report treats a grapheme cluster as the programmatic stand-in for what a user perceives as a character, and recommends the extended form precisely because it gives better results in Indic scripts, where people edit by orthographic syllable. Unicode 15.1 brought Telugu conjuncts inside that rule, so a consonant following a virama stays in the same cluster. That is the right answer — but it only helps if every tool in the chain has been rebuilt since, and subtitling chains are long and old.
Which leaves it as a matter of agreement rather than discovery. We ask two questions at the brief: what does your side count, and what does the platform you deliver to count. After that the limits mean something. Where the two disagree we write to the stricter one, which costs a few words per cue and removes an entire category of rejection from the end of the project.
Since 2008
Subtitling & captioning
100+
Languages covered
ISO 9001 & 14001
Certified processes
24–48h
Typical turnaround
Subtitling rates
Professional Telugu subtitling
For single videos and straightforward content where accurate, well-timed subtitles are what you need.
- Native Telugu subtitler
- Counting unit agreed up front
- Frame-accurate timing
For longer content and recurring projects, including transcription, SDH, burned-in subtitles and multiple output formats.
- Everything in Standard
- Transcription and template
- SDH and burnt-in
- Multiple output formats
Every project is quoted individually and backed by our Price Match Promise. Send us your video for an exact, no-obligation quote.
Not sure what your Telugu subtitles will cost?
Send us the video — or just its running time — and we come back with an itemised quote: running time, languages and output formats priced line by line, with nothing hidden. No obligation, and if you find a like-for-like price lower, we will match it.
- Free, itemised quote
- No obligation
- Price Match Promise
Trusted by global brands
We have used GoLocalise on a regular basis for projects in a number of languages. The service we receive is great. The team is always friendly and professional. The voiceovers we receive are of a very high quality and the turnaround is extremely quick. We are very happy to recommend GoLocalise to other businesses.
It was a pleasure to work with David and the team at GoLocalise. David gave me lots of help and advice, guiding me through my first subtitling project. He really knows his stuff! The experience was completely pain-free. I would not hesitate to recommend GoLocalise – outstanding work at a good price.
They're reliable, adaptive and obsessed with quality. And while you can never be 100% guaranteed of perfection, you can be sure GoLocalise will go the extra mile to get it right every time. We've worked with them now for over 5 years and we are truly thankful to have such a strong localisation partner for our business.
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Most common questions
Why do two tools give different character counts for the same Telugu line?
Because they are counting different things. A Telugu syllable is written as one unit but stored as several code points, so a tool that counts code points reports a much bigger number than one that counts what the reader sees. The word స్త్రీ is six of the first and one of the second. Neither tool is broken; they were never asked the same question.
Our Telugu subtitles were rejected for reading speed, but they looked fine.
That is the usual way this surfaces. Characters per second is a count divided by a duration, so if your side counts in code points and ours counts in syllables, the same cue produces two very different speeds and only one of them breaches the limit. Nothing is wrong with the text itself. The limit and the measurement were simply never expressed in the same unit.
What counting unit should we specify for Telugu?
Say it explicitly, whichever one you choose. If your platform's QC is the gate that matters, specify the unit that platform uses and we will write to it. If you have a free hand, grapheme clusters are what Unicode recommends for Indic scripts and they match what a Telugu reader experiences. The important part is that it is written down before anyone starts.
Hasn't Unicode already solved this?
It has defined the answer, yes. Unicode 15.1 changed the segmentation rules so that a Telugu conjunct stays inside a single unit, which is what a reader would say too. The gap is deployment: subtitling pipelines run on long-lived software, and an older build anywhere in the chain will still split that conjunct and charge you twice for it. We check what the tools in front of us actually do.
What does Telugu subtitling cost per minute?
Telugu starts at £20 a minute of video. The figure moves with the length of the video, whether a transcript is needed first, whether SDH or a burnt-in version is ordered, and the number of output formats. Agreeing the counting unit and working to it is part of the job rather than an add-on. Every project is quoted on its own, backed by the Price Match Promise.
Can you caption Telugu video in Telugu?
Yes. Same-language Telugu captions and SDH are their own service, distinct from translating into Telugu, and they are what you want when the audio is already right and the text exists for accessibility or for muted playback. The measurement question is identical — a caption line has the same limits as a subtitle line, and it gets settled in exactly the same way.
We have a Telugu transcript or SRT already.
Good, send it. We spot and time against it, and the first thing we establish is what the existing line lengths were measured in, because an inherited file usually carries limits from a tool nobody has the details of any more. Without a transcript we start from the Telugu audio instead. The same checks close both routes.
Do your Telugu files open in standard editing software?
Yes. Telugu SRT, VTT, STL and TTML import into Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and the online editors. Be aware that each of them shows its own character count for a Telugu line and those will not all agree — so treat the figure in the handover as the one the file was built against, and tell us if a downstream tool disputes it.
Ready to subtitle your video in Telugu?
Send us your video and we'll come back with an exact, itemised quote.
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Voice over
- State-of-the-art studios
- Neumann microphones
- On-hand sound engineers
- 1,000+ voice actors
Translation
- 100+ languages covered
- Tailored to your needs
- Stringent quality control
- Dedicated project managers
Subtitling
- Experienced subtitlers
- Industry-standard software
- Burn-in and graphic editing
- Open and closed captions
Transcription
- Improve accessibility
- Reach a wider audience
- Boost SEO and video views
- Maximise video engagement