How to make multilingual product demo videos without an agency

Multilingual product demo videos sound like an agency job. They are not, if you accept one constraint: record the screen once, and treat every language as a script problem rather than a video problem. This article covers that process end to end: the base recording, a script per language, review by a native speaker, what not to translate, captions, naming and storage, and what it costs using only Woxgen's published prices.

One recording, many scripts

Everything rests on a single silent screen recording. You record the flow once, with no microphone, and every language version uses that same footage with a different narration track.

Two decisions before you press record. First, which language the product itself will be shown in. If your product has a localised interface and your buyers will see it in their language, record each language version in that interface, because the narration will refer to what is on screen. If the interface only exists in English, record it in English and have each script say so early on, in one short line. Viewers cope with an English interface. They do not cope with a narrator naming buttons that are not on their screen.

Second, pace. Record slower than feels natural and pause after each click that matters. Some languages take more words to say the same thing, and a slow recording gives every script room to fit.

How to make multilingual product demo videos, step by step

1. Finish and lock the source script first. Edit the English (or whichever language you start in) until it is the version you would ship on its own. Every change you make to the source after this point has to be made once per language, so do not start translating a draft.
2. Write a script per language. Give the translator the video, not just the text, so they can see each screen and shorten lines that would outlast their shot. The aim is a script that says the same thing in the same number of seconds. A word for word rendering rarely does.
3. Mark what stays untranslated. Interface labels stay exactly as they appear on screen. Your product name stays as it is. Feature names stay in the product's language unless the product itself translates them. File formats, keyboard shortcuts and anything a viewer has to type stay as they are.
4. Pick a voice for each language and preview it on the real script. Woxgen has natural voices in 25+ languages and lets you preview any voice on your own lines, so check how it pronounces your product name and the untranslated labels before you render.
5. Have a native speaker who knows the product review the preview, not the text. Reading a script catches grammar. Watching the video catches the things that matter: the wrong level of formality for your market, a label read in the wrong language, a line that is still talking after the screen has changed.
6. Check the captions. Woxgen generates captions from the final narration, so each language version gets captions in its own language and they match the audio word for word. Leave them on. A lot of demo views happen with the sound off.
7. Render each version and file it using the naming scheme below.

What not to translate

This deserves its own list because it is where most localised demos go wrong, and it is the part a translator without the video cannot get right.

Do not translate interface text. If the button on screen says "Export", the narrator says "Export", even in a script where every other word is in another language. The viewer is matching sound to screen.

Do not translate your product name or the names of features that appear in the interface. Do translate the explanation of what the feature does.

Do not translate things the viewer has to type: email formats, commands, file names, URLs.

Do translate the outcome line at the start, the reasons behind each step, and the call to action at the end. Those are the parts that need to sound native.

If a reviewer pushes back on an untranslated label, the right fix is usually in the product, not the script.

Naming and storage

With one video in five languages you have six files, five scripts and five sets of captions. With ten videos it is sixty files. Decide the naming now.

A pattern that holds up: product area, flow, language code, version. For example billing_create-invoice_de_v2. Keep the language code even for the source language, so the English file is _en_ and not the odd one out. Increase the version number whenever the footage or the script changes, and keep the date and the reason in a change log rather than in the filename.

Store the script for each language next to its video. When the product changes, you will edit the source script and need to find every translation that has to follow. Keep the Woxgen project as well: videos stay in your account for as long as you keep the project, so a later edit to one language does not start from an upload. How to keep the whole library current when the product changes is covered in how to update a demo video when the product changes.

What it costs, from Woxgen's published prices

Woxgen's pay per video price is $5 for one finished video of up to 5 minutes, with unlimited re-renders of that video. Budget each language version as its own finished video. One two minute demo in five languages is five videos, so $25. If a reviewer finds a wrong line in one version after it is rendered, fixing it is a re-render, so it costs nothing more.

On a plan, each version counts against monthly minutes. A two minute demo in six languages uses 12 minutes. Plus is $19 a month and includes 30 minutes of finished video and 40 minutes of AI voice-over. Teams is $49 a month for 60 minutes and five members. Pro is $199 a month for 120 minutes. Extra minutes can be bought as packs that do not expire. The full table is on the pricing page.

What the price does not include is the translator and the native reviewer. That is the real cost of a multilingual library, and it is the part worth paying for properly, because it is the only part the viewer judges you on.

What to do next

Take the one demo that gets watched most and make it in the single language where you already get visitors you cannot serve. Record it once, write the script per language, have one native speaker watch the preview, and keep the file names tidy from the first video. If that version earns its place, add the next language the same way.

Signing up to Woxgen is free and so is a 15-second preview of your own recording. You can sign up and upload the base recording to hear a voice in your target language before paying for anything.