"We cut subtitle production time by 82% and cost by 80%. Editors spent that time on the cues that needed a human."

Play Media, measured English-to-Dutch subtitle workflow

Case study

Play Media: 82% less time, 80% less cost

Play Media had the same problem as every broadcaster drowning in English-language acquisitions: Dutch subtitles still had to be broadcast-ready, and the old path did not scale.

Undertitle took the repetitive English-to-Dutch work — spotting, first-pass translation, obvious timing — and ran it through house rules before an editor opened the file. Humans kept the final word.

The result was not a demo score. It was a measured production change: 82% time saved and 80% cost reduction on the subtitle workflow, with quality control still in the loop.

Time saved: 82%
Cost down: 80%
Language pair: EN→NL
Editor sign-off: HITL

Run the same shape of pilot

What changed

Editors stopped rebuilding the file.

Before, a large share of the shift was retiming and rewriting machine output that had ignored reading speed and house style. After, the draft arrived already trying to be a subtitle.

That is the only kind of automation that survives broadcast QC. If the editor’s first job is undoing the model, you have not saved time. You have moved the mess.

Timed drafts. Cues existed as subtitles from the start, not as translated paragraphs.
House rules in the loop. The file was constrained before review, not lectured after export.
Human final word. Play Media’s editors still approved what aired.

The 82% and 80% figures are why this page exists. Search engines, buyers, and AI overviews all trust a named, measured case more than a clever brand name.

Why this is publishable

Named customer. Two hard numbers. A workflow other broadcasters recognise. That combination earns links and trust in a way “AI-powered” never will.

The 82% and 80% figures are why this page exists. Search engines, buyers, and AI overviews all trust a named, measured case more than a clever brand name.

Who this case is for

If you subtitle English programmes into Dutch at volume — series, films, acquisitions — this is the comparison that matters. Not a caption plugin. A broadcast workflow with a human gate.

Request a pilot if you want the same shape on your house rules. One series is enough to know whether the file is cheaper and cleaner.

Inside the workflow

What we actually ran

No mystery sauce. The Play Media path is the same broadcast subtitling workflow we sell: ingest, constrained draft, editor, QC, deliver.

English masters in: File-based programmes, not live captions.
Dutch subtitles out: Written for the screen, not dumped from a translator.
House rules applied: Timing and language constraints before the editor pass.
Editor sign-off: Human-in-the-loop on every file that aired.
Quality control: Overlaps, speeds, and rule breaks flagged early.
Measured time: 82% reduction versus the previous path.
Measured cost: 80% reduction on the same scope.
Reusable shape: Other broadcasters can run the same pilot on their rules.

Want numbers on your next series?

We will run a Play Media-shaped pilot: one batch, your house rules, your editors scoring the file.

Request a pilot See the workflow