FAMILIAR RESEARCHALL ARTICLES
ABSTRACT
There are four ways to translate a video: subtitles, voice-over in a stranger's voice, voice-only dubbing in the speaker's own voice, and voice + lip-sync dubbing, where the performance itself is translated: lip-sync and everything past it. What each method preserves, what it costs per minute, and how to choose, whether you translate a video to English, to Spanish, or a whole catalog into 30 languages.
01.The four ways to translate a video
| Method | The words | The voice | The face | The scene | Typical price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subtitles | Read, not heard | Kept (original audio) | Kept | Kept | Included with every Familiar dub · professional translation about $10/min |
| Voice-over (the classic dub) | Spoken by a stranger | Replaced | Mouths the original language | Depends on the studio mix | $70 to $150 full human, translation plus voice · voice packages alone $39 to $94 · from $128 premium studio |
| Voice-only dubbing | Spoken | The speaker's own | Still mouths the original | Often degraded (measured in Sec 02) | $3 (ElevenLabs checkout quote, Aug 5, 2026), audio only |
| Voice + lip-sync dubbing | Spoken | The speaker's own | Re-rendered to the new language | Music, effects, ambience kept | Familiar: one render, by Studio contract |
- YouTube auto-dubbing and human voice-overboth replace the speaker's voice with a stranger's.
- Voice-only dubbing, often searched as "voice cloning," keeps the voice; the mouth still speaks the old language: no lip-sync at all.
- Voice + lip-sync dubbing is the AI lip sync people search for, extended to the whole face. How it works: AI Video Dubbing, Explained.
02.What quality means and how it is measured
The honest test is paired: the same source video to each system. Two paired studies against ElevenLabs, never pooled, at /benchmark/elevenlabs, judged on:
MEANINGVOICE CLONINGSCENE NOISE BEDTRANSIENT TIMING
ElevenLabs258
Familiar132
- Same study: Familiar sounds 27.8% more like the real speaker (0.4605 vs 0.3604).
- All 11 languages favored Familiar.
The Dubbing v2 (Alpha) study, 111 paired outputs, shows the same shape:
270%
ElevenLabs produced 270% more background-sound error: the laughter, the music, the ambience.
11.92 VS 3.22 DB · DUBBING V2 (ALPHA)−54.7%
Familiar made 54.7% fewer important spoken translation errors.
29 VS 64 · DUBBING V2 (ALPHA)+28.2%
Familiar scored higher on laughter and reaction shape correlation.
0.960 VS 0.749 · DUBBING V2 (ALPHA)03.What translation quality is achievable
August 2026: our production pipeline against expert professional translators, scored blind against expert reference edits.
French100.0%
Chinese98.2%
Hindi103.3%
Indonesian99.6%
- 100.3%four-language average: the pipeline matches the first-pass professional's quality.
- 5× cheaper than professional human translators at $22 to $45 per spoken minute (published per-word rates, translation alone). Full study: AI vs Human Translation: Tested Against Professionals.
Control is the other half:
- A Do Not Translate list keeps names and catchphrases exactly as the speaker says them.
- Jokes are rewritten to land.
- Every video pauses at a review screen: edit any line before render.
04.Cost per minute
ElevenLabs$3 audio only
Subtitles, pro~$10 text only
Human voice$39–94
Full human dub$70–150
Studio dubfrom $128
- None of these rates includes lip-sync; one Familiar render does, with the translation, the speaker's voice, and the scene audio. The subtitle figure is the median professional rate across the 11 study languages.
- Full human dubbing, translation plus voice, runs $70 to $150 per finished minute: $4,200 to $9,000 for a 60-minute video in one language.
- Subtitles ship with every dub in the dubbed language (.srt and .vtt).
- Access: Studio contract, sized to your catalog; 30-day money back on signed annual contracts.
Rates and access: /pricing; the full rate survey: How Much Does Dubbing Cost in 2026?
05.Live translation
Live dubbing is experimental and coming soon, set up with our team. The approach: Live Dubbing for Livestreams: What Is Coming.
COMING SOON
Each target language on its own channel, behind the original; experimental today.
PER-LANGUAGE CHANNELS06.Choosing by content type
- Talking-head videos. The face carries the message, so voice + lip-sync dubbing is the natural pick; subtitles waste the format.
- Podcasts and interviews. Multiple speakers must each keep their own voice.
- Movies and TV. Music, effects, and reaction timing decide whether a dub is watchable; Sec 02 measures exactly those. Studio playbooks: Why the Dub Feels Off Abroad, and How Studios Fix It and What Is the Best AI Dubbing for Movies?
- Streaming catalogs. Coverage is the constraint: dub on upload, review per language, release each language when it clears. How Streaming Platforms Close the Local-Language Gap.
- Micro-dramas.Daily episodes in the actors' own voices, with names and catchphrases held by a series-level Do Not Translate list. Dubbing Micro-Dramas on a Daily Release Schedule.
- Simultaneous launches. One request into every target language, each market released on its own approval. Multi-Country Launches: Dubbing Every Market at Once.
- Courses and lectures. Terminology is the risk: put technical terms on the Do Not Translate list and check them at the review screen.
- Sermons.A weekly recording reaching a multilingual congregation, in the speaker's own voice rather than an interpreter's.
- Livestreams and live commerce. Only live dubbing fits here; subtitles and recorded dubs arrive after the moment has passed. At Familiar, live dubbing is experimental and coming soon.
- Ads and product video.Short runtimes make complete dubs cheap, and the founder's or spokesperson's real voice carries the trust.
- Consults, tours, and client explainers. The same talking-head shape works for medical-tourism clinics, tour operators, law firms, and insurers.
- Not in English64%
- In English36%
Familiar's 30 languages run any-to-any: a Spanish or Korean channel can translate a video to English, the biggest audience unlock there is.
REFERENCES
Dubbing is finally good. See the measurements, then talk with the team about your catalog.
FAMILIAR · THE LAUNCH FILM · 2:31