Why you remove the old text first
Hardcoded subtitles are part of the picture. Put new subtitles on top and viewers see two lines in two languages, or a black bar that hides half the frame. Cropping cuts off the bottom of the shot. Removing the original text gives you a clean master you can caption in any language.
The workflow
- Check for a clean source. Ask the owner for a version without subtitles, or a project file. That is always the best start.
- Remove the burned-in subtitles. Upload to Wipe AI, keep Automatic mode on and press Process. Check the preview first.
- Transcribe and translate. Use your captioning tool or translator on the audio, which is not changed by the removal.
- Add the new language. Burn the new subtitles into the clean video, or upload them as a separate subtitle file on YouTube or your player.
Subtitles in other scripts
English and other Latin-alphabet subtitles are found for everyone. For Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Arabic or Urdu, Wipe AI adds the matching text model based on your browser language. If your browser is in another language, or a line is missed, switch to Manual mode on a computer or tablet and draw a box over the subtitle area for the seconds it shows. Everything inside a Manual box is removed.
Titles, signs and lower thirds
Localization often means more than subtitles: a title card, a speaker's name and role, a sign in the scene. Remove the ones you will redo in the new language and leave the rest. In Manual mode, on a computer or tablet, you choose exactly which text goes and for which seconds.
Text that belongs to the scene, such as a shop sign or a book cover, is usually best left as it is.
Long videos and client work
One credit is one second of video. A 10-minute training video uses 600 credits. Creator ($9.99 the first month, then $19.99) has 1,000 credits a month at up to 1080p; Studio ($30) has 3,000 credits and takes videos up to 2 hours. Keep the original and the cleaned master side by side, so you can deliver every language from the same clean file. Files are deleted from our servers within 24 hours and are not used for AI training.