{"kind":"guides","slug":"what-is-voice-over","path":"/guides/what-is-voice-over","title":"What Is a Voice-Over? Meaning and Examples | SuperClonica","description":"What a voice-over is, how it differs from dubbing and voice acting, what voice-over translation and V.O. in a script mean, and how to make one yourself.","h1":"What is a voice-over? Meaning, types and how to make one","intro":"A voice-over is narration by a voice you do not see on screen. The narrator of a documentary, the voice explaining a news report, the announcer in an ad and the friendly voice in an on-hold message are all voice-overs.\n\nThis guide explains the term, how it differs from dubbing and voice acting, the special case of voice-over translation, and the ways to make a voice-over today, from your own microphone to an AI voice.","sections":[{"heading":"The meaning","paragraphs":["Voice-over, also called off-camera or off-stage commentary, is a production technique in which a voice from outside the story narrates or explains what is happening. It is read from a script, by someone from the production or by a professional voice actor, and is usually recorded in advance and placed over the film or video. Typical uses are documentaries, news reports, adverts, video games, on-hold messages and announcements; at award shows it is sometimes read live."]},{"heading":"Voice-over, dubbing and voice acting","paragraphs":["A voice-over is added on top of what is already there. Dubbing, or revoicing, replaces the original dialogue with a translated version, so the actors seem to speak another language. Voice acting is performing characters, for example in cartoons and games, where the voice belongs to someone inside the story. The words are often mixed up, and one person can do all three jobs."]},{"heading":"Voice-over translation","paragraphs":["In voice-over translation the translated voice is recorded over the original track, which stays audible underneath. It is common in documentaries and news interviews in countries where subtitles are not the norm. In Russia the single-voice version is known as Gavrilov translation, after one of its best-known artists, and it was everywhere on video tapes; our VHS voice-over guide shows how to recreate that style."]},{"heading":"Three ways to make a voice-over","paragraphs":["Record it yourself: a quiet room, a phone or USB microphone and a printed script go a long way. Hire a voice actor through a marketplace when the voice is the face of a brand. Or use AI text to speech: on the page of any voice in the SuperClonica catalog you can voice a line of 30 to 100 characters free and download it, and the free engine voices whole scripts offline on your computer."]},{"heading":"Write a script that sounds good","paragraphs":["Write for the ear: short sentences, one idea each, and numbers the way you would say them. Read the script aloud with the video before recording, cut what the picture already shows, and leave small pauses where the viewer needs a moment to look."]}],"faq":[{"question":"What does voice-over mean?","answer":"Narration by a voice that is not seen on screen, read from a script and usually recorded in advance, as in documentaries, news and ads."},{"question":"Is voice-over the same as dubbing?","answer":"No. A voice-over is added on top of the existing sound; dubbing replaces the original dialogue with a translated one."},{"question":"What does V.O. mean in a script?","answer":"In screenplays, V.O. marks a voice-over, a voice from outside the scene such as a narrator. O.S. marks a character who is in the scene but off screen."},{"question":"Can I make a voice-over with AI for free?","answer":"Yes. Any catalog voice reads a line of 30 to 100 characters free online, and the free engine voices longer scripts on your computer."}],"cta":{"catalog":"Browse voices","install":"Install the SuperClonica engine"},"sources":[{"label":"Wikipedia: Voice-over","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice-over"},{"label":"Wikipedia: Voice-over translation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice-over_translation"}],"published":"2026-10-31","updated":"2026-10-31","pages":[{"slug":"rask-ai-alternative","path":"/guides/rask-ai-alternative","h1":"Rask AI alternative: dub videos without per-minute limits"},{"slug":"clova-dubbing-alternative","path":"/guides/clova-dubbing-alternative","h1":"CLOVA Dubbing alternative: Korean text to speech offline"},{"slug":"vhs-voice-over-dub","path":"/guides/vhs-voice-over-dub","h1":"VHS voice-over dub: the 90s one-voice translation style"},{"slug":"documentary-narrator-voice","path":"/guides/documentary-narrator-voice","h1":"A documentary narrator voice: AI voice-over for nature and history films"},{"slug":"voice-cloning","path":"/guides/voice-cloning","h1":"Voice cloning: how to get a voice that sounds like a recording"},{"slug":"what-is-text-to-speech","path":"/guides/what-is-text-to-speech","h1":"What is TTS? Text to speech, explained simply"},{"slug":"google-translate-voice","path":"/guides/google-translate-voice","h1":"Google Translate voice: save the audio or choose another voice"},{"slug":"raspberry-pi-text-to-speech","path":"/guides/raspberry-pi-text-to-speech","h1":"Raspberry Pi text to speech with natural voices"},{"slug":"text-to-speech-for-games","path":"/guides/text-to-speech-for-games","h1":"AI voice acting for games: NPC voice over without a studio"},{"slug":"types-of-narrator","path":"/guides/types-of-narrator","h1":"Types of narrator and the voice that fits each one"},{"slug":"ai-voice-scam-calls","path":"/guides/ai-voice-scam-calls","h1":"AI voice cloning scam calls: how they work and how to protect your family"},{"slug":"text-to-speech-linux","path":"/guides/text-to-speech-linux","h1":"Linux text to speech: natural offline TTS from the terminal"}],"related":[{"slug":"text-to-speech","path":"/text-to-speech","h1":"Text-to-speech that runs on your own computer"},{"slug":"supertonic","path":"/compare/supertonic","h1":"Supertonic vs SuperClonica: same model, faster and cleaner"},{"slug":"fish-audio","path":"/compare/fish-audio","h1":"Fish Audio and Fish Speech vs SuperClonica"},{"slug":"omnivoice","path":"/compare/omnivoice","h1":"OmniVoice vs SuperClonica: more languages or more speed"},{"slug":"qwen3-tts","path":"/compare/qwen3-tts","h1":"Qwen3-TTS vs SuperClonica for local text-to-speech"},{"slug":"voxcpm","path":"/compare/voxcpm","h1":"VoxCPM 2 vs SuperClonica: studio sound or CPU speed"},{"slug":"f5-tts","path":"/compare/f5-tts","h1":"F5-TTS vs SuperClonica: zero-shot cloning or fast CPU speech"},{"slug":"elevenlabs","path":"/compare/elevenlabs","h1":"An offline alternative to ElevenLabs"},{"slug":"kokoro","path":"/compare/kokoro","h1":"Kokoro TTS vs SuperClonica: two small models for local speech"},{"slug":"piper","path":"/compare/piper","h1":"Piper TTS vs SuperClonica: tiny devices or custom voices"},{"slug":"xtts","path":"/compare/xtts","h1":"Coqui XTTS-v2 vs SuperClonica: a Coqui TTS alternative"},{"slug":"chatterbox","path":"/compare/chatterbox","h1":"Chatterbox TTS vs SuperClonica: instant cloning or a trained voice file"}]}