Video localization/translation: Best practices and tips for the source.

When shooting and editing video that might potentially end up being translated, take into consideration some factors that will end up making the process a lot easier.

1. Popular tools: there are thousands of tools out there for video editing. Use one of the popular, professional ones!
The vendors will have to know the tool and have a copy of it. It will be easier if you can edit your video in one of these, so when you pass the project files, it will be just a matter of click and open.
These are some of the most popular video editors:

• Apple Final Cut Pro
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Sony Vegas
• Adobe After Effects (Composition software)
• Avid

2. Project files and assets: regardless of the tool used, always keep a copy of the project files and its assets in an organized way.
I.e., if we have on-screen text, keep the layered source files (.PSD, .AI, etc). If your graphics or illustrations are not layered, the vendors will have to re-create them and that will add a lot to the final cost.
Have also the backgrounds, music tracks, fonts, effects, etc, in folders named accordingly.

3. Raw, uncompressed: whether you kept or not your project files, make sure you always keep a raw, uncompressed version of the final, edited video.
The vendors will eventually have to compress the video. If you compress an already compressed copy of it, you will be degrading the quality.

4. Well spoken: When shooting the original, make sure your talent is pausing and being clear.
Whether you are dubbing, replacing the voice tracks, or subtitling, you need to fit the audio or the subtitles in a limited amount of frames, that the audience needs to be able to hear without sounding like “chipmunks”, or read without having to speed thru it.
Remember that there are languages where it will take 1.5 to 2 times to say the same thing as i.e., the English.

5. Dubbing or subtitling? The decision is not just only about the cost. The media on which you are distributing your product will make an impact.
I.e. in a movie that is 720×480 pixels, it will be a lot easier to read subtitles, than in one that is 320×240.

6. Subtitling: before you send out a video for subtitling, there are certain things you have to understand:

• Close Caption: these are the white text under black bars that you usually see in regular TV. This type of subtitles are the most expensive ones and won’t work for media distributed over the internet. It will only work on, surprise, TVs.
• Burned-in subtitles: these are the ones that are always on the video. They can’t be turned off.
• Standalone subtitles: these are, most of the times, text files that are packed along the video, and that need to be turned on by the user. Even if they can be turned on and off, its usability is not the greatest for multimedia projects, because of the different multimedia players in the market.
• DVD subtitles: these can only be created with DVD mastering software. They will only work with DVD movies and can be turned on and off.

7. The storyboard: It will always be easier for the vendors to localize your movie if they have an storyboard of it.
An storyboard, in this case, is an script that also has references to on-screen text, movie cuts and transitions, talent changes, comments, etc.
If that storyboard also points to which assets were used, then a lot better!
I.e. with a storyboard, the vendor can determine how much recording is needed by the female character in the movie, vs. how much is needed for male #1.

8. When screen shots are used: when the video is a tutorial or training, and screenshots of software are used and need to be localized, you will have to provide a list of the software used and the environments created.
If the software has not been released yet, be prepared to provide more than 1 license of that software in the localized language, and 1 license in the source language for reference, and road-maps.
Road-maps are guides, so the vendors can recreate, step by step, what you did in the source video.
If the video is about hardware, then be prepared to supply a prototype, released unit, or emulator so the vendors can take the screenshots.

9. Delivery specs: so what do you want as your end product?
If there are preferences on fonts and colors, pass them up. What type of subtitles you want? What compression you need? Which codec to use? What is the movie size desired? What is the audio compression? What is the file format?

Optimize Windows XP

Whether you want to use Windows XP for music recording, video editing, web browsing or anything else, here is the ultimate guide to make Windows XP just a lot faster!

1. Start –> Settings –> Control Panel –> System. Click on the Advanced tab. Click on Perfomance, Settings. Select Adjust for best performance.

2. This is a debatable tweak, but for me it has been working just fine. Start –> Settings –> Control Panel –> System. Click on the System Restore tab. Turn off System Restore for all drives.

3. Start –> Settings –> Taskbar and Start Menu. Untick “Auto-hide the taskbar” and “Hide inactive icons”.

4. Disable Hibernation. Start –> Settings –> Control Panel –> Power Options. Click on the Hibernate tab. Untick “Enable hibernation”.

5. Disable Fast User Switching. Start –> Settings –> Control Panel –> User Accounts. On Select the way users log on or off, Untick “Use Fast User Swtiching”.

6. Disable indexing service. Start –> Settings –> Control Panel –> Administrative Tools –> Services. Find “Indexing Service”, double click on it. Change Startup type: Disabled.

7. Start –> Settings –> Control Panel –> System. Click on the Advanced tab. Click on Perfomance, Settings. Click on the Advanced tab. On Virtual memory click on Change. Click on Custom size. The number you will enter on “Initial Size (MB):” and “Maximun Size (MB):” corresponds to 1.5 times the actual memory you have in your computer, or you can enter the “Recommended:” size. In this case 3063 MB. Remember to click on Set.

8. Minimize menu loading. Start –> Run… Enter “regedit”. Click OK. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER –> Control Panel –> Desktop. Double click on “MenuShowDelay”. Enter “0″ and click OK.

Install PHP on Windows XP

For those of you wanting to run/test PHP code on your own machine, or on a machine on your local network, this one is for you. First off, you would had to have installed the Internet Information Services (IIS). If you have not done so, please go here.

1. Let’s install PHP Version 5. Go here: http://www.php.net/downloads.php#v5. Dowload the file called PHP 5.2.6. installer. As of this writing, that was the latest stable version. It can be called different, but just make sure it is the installer. Run it.

2. Click on Next. Click on Accept and Next. Change C:\Program Files\PHP\ to just C:\PHP\.

3. Select IIS CGI. Cick on Next. On “Choose Items to Install”, for now let’s leave all as is. Click on Next. Click on Install. Click on Finish.

4. Download this file, right click->save as -phptest.php- and save it to this path: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot. Open your browser and type the following: http://localhost/phptest.php. You should get something like this:

5. Done. But I will add some steps so this computer can be seen within your local network and not only within you local box.

6. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel. Click on Windows Firewall.

7. On the Exceptions tab, Click on Add Port… Name: HTTP, Port Number: 80.

8. Click Ok. Ok again. Now open a browser in another machine within the network and type the following address: http://machinename/phptest.php (machinename should be changed to the name of the computer hosting the web server and php).

Install a Web/FTP Server on Windows XP

In case you want to test you web site on your own computer, before publishing it to the web, or need to ftp files to your own personal box, you will need a Web Server or an FTP Server. By default, Windows XP won’t install its Web/Ftp Server, so let’s add the Internet Information Services (IIS), which contains a Web Server, an FTP Server, FrontPage Extensions, SMTP Service, etc. Remember to have the Windows XP’s installation CD at hand.

1. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel. Click on the Add or Remove Programs icon.

2. On the left pane, click on Add/Remove Windows Components. The following window will pop up.

3. Click on Internet Information Services (IIS). Click on Details… Customize it with the services needed. Click Ok. Click on Next>.

4. Windows will ask you to insert the CD. Note that this CD needs to be the one used to do the original Windows XP installation. Click on Finish.

5. Open a web browser and type this address: http://localhost/. You should get something like this

6. Done. Now you can add a scripting language, i.e. PHP, a database, i.e. MyPHP, and you can set up an environment on where to test out complex sites.

Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause, Insert, Etc on Bootcamp

Running Bootcamp on a Mac, with your favorite flavor of Windows, is a very pleasant and smooth experience. But nothing is perfect, and the lack of certain keys in the Macs keyboards, might be a bit of a problem for some users.

There are tons of sites teaching you how to hack the registry so you can re-map some keys. Here I will go for the fastest, easiest way to access the whole windows keyboard.

Go to Start –> Programs –> Accessories –> Accessibility –> On-Screen Keyboard. This is what will show up. Click and enjoy.

Video Copilot: Energy (68)

Andrew Kramer bring us thru his site, VideoCopilot.net, an amazing tutorial on how to generate the energy effect, as seen in a lot of movies.

Take the tutorial here: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=109

From Excel to Trados/Logoport

Tools: Excel, Trados/Logoport, Dreamweaver (or any other text editor with unicode support, and multi-line search and replace).

Exporting from Excel to Trados or Logoport, if manual, is rather a very easy task. Here is a step by step guide on how to do it. Note, however, that in this example, I will be only exporting the translations without any type of attribute fields:

1. You will receive an Excel file that looks something like this. If not, arrange it -move, delete, etc- so it has only the source language in colum A and target language in colum B.

2. Insert a colum before A. In that colum and in the first row, add the following: <TrU><CrU>Username<Seg L=EN-US>. Replace Username with your initials. In this case JC. Fill the rest of the rows with the same string.

3. Insert a colum before C. Fill that colum with the following: <Seg L=ES-EM>. In this case the target language is Spanish (ES-EM). Refer to the language codes for the rest of the languages. Fill colum E with the following: </TrU>

4. Now you will Save your file as unicode text. Save As –> Other Format –> Unicode Text –> Ok –> Yes. Close Excel. Open the exported file in Dreamweaver. Your file should look like this:

5. Now you will have to run a couple of search and replace:
<TrU><CrU>JC<Seg L=EN-US>select tab
with
<TrU>shift return<CrU>JCshift return<Seg L=EN-US>remove tab

6. select tab<Seg L=ES-EM>select tab
with
remove tab, shift return<Seg L=ES-EM>remove tab

7. select tab</TrU>
with
remove tab, shift return</TrU>

8. Your file should look like this. Save it as UTF-8 and import it into Trados/Logoport.