Why isn't YouTube dubbing my video? The reasons on its help page

YouTube's help page lists five reasons a video is not auto-dubbed: it runs over 120 minutes, it has no speech, only music or very little speech, it contains copyrighted content, YouTube cannot detect the source language, or the original speech is too fast. If your video matches none of them, look at the source language and the audio itself, since those are what the page points to.

Which of the five reasons is mine?

Go down the list in this order, because the first three can be checked without listening.

How can I check whether there is enough speech?

Sume can measure it before you upload. Sume's video inspect route with transcribe: true runs speech-to-text on the clip and returns the words, at $0.01 per audio minute; the probe and stills are unbilled. If the transcript is nearly empty for a video you thought was talking, that is what YouTube would also hear. The video must already be on media.sume.com. The Video inspect docs list the request fields.

What does a pre-upload check look like?

A short routine catches most cases before you publish, and each step uses only what YouTube's page and Sume's docs state.

• Confirm the runtime is under 120 minutes.
• Run inspect with transcribe: true and read the transcript; set language_code if you know the language, or omit it for auto-detect.
• Skim the transcript for long gaps: a video that is mostly music will show few words.
• Check Studio for copyright claims on the video.
• If the language is mixed or the pace is fast, re-record or edit that section, since those are two of the five listed reasons.

What can I upload instead?

For a music-only video, there is nothing to translate, so a dub adds nothing. For a video with a little talk over music, upload a version where the voice is clear, then dub that. If you want to hear only the speech, detach the audio with Sume's audio detach, which returns a new audio file and leaves the video untouched, and listen to it on its own. Detach fails with detach_source_has_no_audio on a source with no audio track, which is a quick test for a silent file.