4 ms·

That's hilarious. Columbo was my grandfather's favorite show on Hungarian TV back in the day. Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - you couldn't

That's hilarious. Columbo was my grandfather's favorite show on Hungarian TV back in the day. Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - you couldn't even tell that Hungarian wasn't the original language.

roel_v 14y ago
"Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - you couldn't even tell that Hungarian wasn't the original language." OT, but do you know anything about how that worked? Surely in another language, the form of the lips while speaking is different, not to mention the length of sentences, double entendres that are impossible to translate, etc?
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  Using ADR and creative translation teams. To fit the words with lip movements, dialogue could be quite different from the original while retaining the overall plot. “In Hungary, practically all television programmes are dubbed, as are about 50 percent of movies in theaters. In the socialist era, every one of them was dubbed with professional and mostly popular actors. Great care was taken to make sure the same voice actor would lend his voice to the same actor. In the early 1990s, as cinemas tried to keep up with showing newly released films, subtitling became dominant in cinema. This, in turn, forced TV channels to make their own cheap versions of dubbed soundtracks for the movies they presented, resulting in a constant degrading of dubbing quality. Once this became customary, cinema distributors resumed the habit of dubbing for popular productions, presenting them in a quality varying from very poor to average. However, every single feature is presented with the original soundtrack in at least one cinema in large towns and cities.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_(filmmaking)#Countries_that_generally_dub_foreign_programming_into_their_own_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_(filmmaking)#Countries_...
- EdiX 14y ago
  > but do you know anything about how that worked? Surely in another language, the form of the lips while speaking is different It will be different but unless you read lips or pay close attention you won't notice it (too much). IIRC dub translators try to match end vowels of sentences. > not to mention the length of sentences A good adaptation will account for that and translate for matching durations. > double entendres that are impossible to translate That's not a problem unique to dubbing. When a joke is impossible to translate it isn't. Good translators will compensate for dropped jokes by adding other jokes when possible. Translated comedy is rarely good.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  It is often non-obvious, but possible to find either a direct translation or a very similar idiom. This is very hard work, which is why most dubbing sucks. So I'd rather do without.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >OT, but do you know anything about how that worked? Well, remember to also take the "absolutely perfectly lip synced" and "couldn't even tell" with a grain of salt. If we were to see one such lip synced episode now, I bet it would be quite crude and obvious. It's probably just that being a kid at the time, and remembering it afterwards (maybe with some nostalgia), it appears better than it was. Here's a Hungarian lip-synced Columbo episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzl4b23cZg4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzl4b23cZg4 Not "absolutely perfectly lip synced" at all.
- Udo 14y ago
  They still do that in Germany to every foreign language movie or series, to the point where it's impossible to get the original content legally. The sad truth is that although they usually do a good job synching the translation with facial movements, the finer nuances and sometimes the entire point of a scene are lost. On the other hand, they did probably manage to actually improve some very bad source material, but as a rule the quality goes dramatically downhill more often than not. There are also a lot of instances where the translation team didn't seem to completely understand the source material to begin with - it's all quite horrible.

roel_v 14y ago

"Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - you couldn't even tell that Hungarian wasn't the original language." OT, but do you know anything about how that worked? Surely in another language, the form of the lips while speaking is different, not to mention the length of sentences, double entendres that are impossible to translate, etc?

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
Using ADR and creative translation teams. To fit the words with lip movements, dialogue could be quite different from the original while retaining the overall plot. “In Hungary, practically all television programmes are dubbed, as are about 50 percent of movies in theaters. In the socialist era, every one of them was dubbed with professional and mostly popular actors. Great care was taken to make sure the same voice actor would lend his voice to the same actor. In the early 1990s, as cinemas tried to keep up with showing newly released films, subtitling became dominant in cinema. This, in turn, forced TV channels to make their own cheap versions of dubbed soundtracks for the movies they presented, resulting in a constant degrading of dubbing quality. Once this became customary, cinema distributors resumed the habit of dubbing for popular productions, presenting them in a quality varying from very poor to average. However, every single feature is presented with the original soundtrack in at least one cinema in large towns and cities.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_(filmmaking)#Countries_that_generally_dub_foreign_programming_into_their_own_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_(filmmaking)#Countries_...
EdiX 14y ago
> but do you know anything about how that worked? Surely in another language, the form of the lips while speaking is different It will be different but unless you read lips or pay close attention you won't notice it (too much). IIRC dub translators try to match end vowels of sentences. > not to mention the length of sentences A good adaptation will account for that and translate for matching durations. > double entendres that are impossible to translate That's not a problem unique to dubbing. When a joke is impossible to translate it isn't. Good translators will compensate for dropped jokes by adding other jokes when possible. Translated comedy is rarely good.
lucian1900 14y ago
It is often non-obvious, but possible to find either a direct translation or a very similar idiom. This is very hard work, which is why most dubbing sucks. So I'd rather do without.
coldtea 14y ago
>OT, but do you know anything about how that worked? Well, remember to also take the "absolutely perfectly lip synced" and "couldn't even tell" with a grain of salt. If we were to see one such lip synced episode now, I bet it would be quite crude and obvious. It's probably just that being a kid at the time, and remembering it afterwards (maybe with some nostalgia), it appears better than it was. Here's a Hungarian lip-synced Columbo episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzl4b23cZg4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzl4b23cZg4 Not "absolutely perfectly lip synced" at all.
Udo 14y ago
They still do that in Germany to every foreign language movie or series, to the point where it's impossible to get the original content legally. The sad truth is that although they usually do a good job synching the translation with facial movements, the finer nuances and sometimes the entire point of a scene are lost. On the other hand, they did probably manage to actually improve some very bad source material, but as a rule the quality goes dramatically downhill more often than not. There are also a lot of instances where the translation team didn't seem to completely understand the source material to begin with - it's all quite horrible.