creating an estimate for subtitle job

A client has asked me to come up with a cost estimate on subtitling a training video - probably at least two languages, maybe more. I've never done subtitles, but I can imagine it would take something like forever. So, for quoting purposes, is there a industry rule of thumb on this - so and so many hours of editing time per minute of video or similar? Or am I better off subcontracting the whole issue to someone who does this for a living?

On a similar note: there would of course be translating involved as well. My colleague says, you can buy a computerized translator that will make any language you want. Anybody ever worked with one of those, if so, are they indeed any good?

I would use a specialized company and certainly no computarized translations.

You would get enormous revisions by your client.

for your budget:

As a rule you could say max 15 subtitles a minute.

A fee for translation should be around +/- 3-4 ? per subtile.
(depending on the languages)

An extra cost of about 250 - 500 euros for mastering a subtitle file and or Digi Beta (12 min)
should be included.

And of course you would need a fee for your encoding/authoring/DvD mastering.

Hope this helps