Dubbing vs subtitling: what is the difference?
Dubbing replaces the voice track in a new language; subtitling keeps the original audio and translates on screen. The honest trade-offs, and which one this studio does.
Updated June 11, 2026
The two definitions
Dubbing replaces the spoken audio of a piece of content with a new performance in another language. The audience hears their own language; the original voices are gone.
Subtitling keeps the original audio exactly as performed and adds translated text on screen. The audience hears the original language and reads their own.
The trade-offs, honestly
Neither is simply better; they optimize for different things.
The two also serve different accessibility needs: subtitles help deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, while dubbing serves listeners who cannot read along, including audio-only formats where subtitles cannot exist.
When each one wins
Dub when the format is audio-first (podcasts, audiobooks, voice-overs), when the audience watches passively or on small screens, or when reading load would fight the content, as it does for children's material and dense tutorials. Subtitle when the original performance is the product, when budgets are tight, or when viewers commonly watch muted, as much social video is watched.
Plenty of productions do both and let the viewer choose, which is the most respectful answer when the budget allows it.
What Cantari does, and does not
The dubbing tool is the dubbing half: it transcribes your recording, translates the script into one of eight languages, and re-voices it, with editable text between every step. It works on audio only; there is no video editing and no lip-sync, and the dubbing guide says so plainly.
We do not produce subtitle files today. Transcripts from Speech to Text come back as plain text without timestamps, and a subtitle format without honest timing would be fake structure. If the transcription endpoint gains timing, the docs will change with it.