Skip to main content
Start Translation

Start Translation

Create a new translation project by uploading a video or audio file. The translation process runs asynchronously in the background. Use the status endpoint to track progress and retrieve results. Use Get Project Details when you need translated version history or lip-sync history.

Concurrency Limit

You can run up to 10 translations at the same time per account. If 10 translations are already in progress, new requests return CONCURRENT_TRANSLATION_LIMIT_REACHED (HTTP 429).

Request

This endpoint accepts multipart/form-data with a file upload.

Headers

x-api-key
string
required
Your VoiceCheap API key. Get one from app.voicecheap.ai/page-api.

Body Parameters

file
file
required
The video or audio file to translate.Supported video formats: video/mp4, video/quicktime, video/x-matroska, video/webm, video/mpegSupported audio formats: audio/mpeg, audio/wav, audio/mp4, audio/x-m4a, audio/flac, audio/ogg, audio/aacMaximum file size: 20 GB
targetLanguage
string
required
The language to translate the content into. Must be lowercase.Allowed values (70+): afrikaans, albanian, amharic, arabic, armenian, assamese, azerbaijani, basque, belarusian, bengali, bosnian, bulgarian, catalan, croatian, czech, danish, dutch, english, british english, estonian, finnish, french, french canadian, galician, german, greek, gujarati, hebrew, hindi, hungarian, icelandic, indonesian, irish, italian, japanese, kannada, kazakh, khmer, korean, lao, latvian, lithuanian, macedonian, malay, malayalam, mandarin, marathi, mongolian, nepali, norwegian, persian, polish, portuguese, brazilian portuguese, punjabi, romanian, russian, serbian, slovak, slovenian, spanish, swahili, swedish, tagalog, tamil, telugu, thai, turkish, ukrainian, urdu, vietnamese, welsh, yoruba, zulu
originalLanguage
string
The source language of the content using ISO language codes (e.g., en, es, fr, de, ja, zh).
Strongly recommended: Leave this empty for auto-detection.Only provide this parameter if you are 100% certain the language code is correct and in valid ISO format. Incorrect language codes will cause transcription failures. Our auto-detection supports 80+ languages and is highly accurate.
Default: auto-detect
projectName
string
A custom name for the project. Useful for identifying projects in your dashboard.Default: The project ID will be used if not provided.
keepBackgroundMusic
boolean
Whether to preserve background audio in the output.When enabled, keeps background music, ambience, laughs, claps, and crowd sounds while removing only the original voice (stem separation). Turn off if your source has no background audio.Default: true
voiceIsolatorOption
string
Voice isolation mode when keepBackgroundMusic is enabled. Controls the quality and characteristics of voice separation.
Preserves the natural characteristics of the recording environment:
  • Maintains a sound closer to the original recording
  • Preserves environmental characteristics
Recommended for: Content where the authenticity of the environment is important, such as outdoor vlogs, documentaries, or content where the sound ambiance is an integral part of the experience.
This option may create artifacts or unexpected effects in some cases due to the preservation of background elements.
Allowed values: studio, realisticDefault: studio
subtitles
boolean
Whether to generate subtitles for the translated video.When enabled, adds clean Netflix-style black and white subtitles. Use subtitlesSource to choose original (source language) or translated (target language) text. Subtitles are automatically synced for optimal readability.Note: Burned-in subtitles require FFmpeg with the subtitles filter (libass). If unavailable, the API falls back to embedding a subtitle track instead of hard-burned styling.Default: false
subtitlesSource
string
Choose the subtitle text source when subtitles is enabled.Allowed values: translated, originalDefault: translatedNote: If original is selected but the original transcription is unavailable, subtitles fall back to translated.
lipsyncPro
boolean
Trigger lip-sync processing after translation completes.
  • false = Standard lip-sync (4 minutes of credits per 1 minute of video)
  • true = Lip Sync Pro (9 minutes of credits per 1 minute of video)
Lip Sync Pro is available starting on the Creator plan.
Max duration: 30 minutes per video.Latency: Lip-sync processing typically adds 2x-4x the original video duration.
Lip-sync completion and failure emails are not sent for API-triggered requests. Use the status endpoint to track progress.
Default: not enabled (omit the field to skip lip-sync)Form-data: Send boolean values as true or false strings (e.g., -F "lipsyncPro=false").
voiceCloningSettings
object
Fine-tune voice cloning parameters for advanced control over the generated voice. Pass as a JSON string when using form-data. All values must be between 0 and 1 (with step of 0.01).
API translations always use voice cloning. These settings tune the generated cloned voice for this API request.
Default values (balanced):
Recommended for avoiding accent reproduction:

Response

success
boolean
required
Always true for successful requests
message
string
required
A human-readable message describing the result
projectId
string
required
The unique identifier for the created translation project. Use this ID to check status.
estimatedDuration
number
required
Rough processing estimate in minutes. The current estimate is five minutes of processing per started minute of source media.

Examples

subtitlesSource accepts translated or original to control which text is used for subtitles. The public API does not currently expose app-only controls such as keeping the original voice bed, custom voice IDs, or translation time skips.

Response Example

Errors