Subtitling and captioning specialist, Softel, has announced two new products to “revolutionize the creation and repurposing of caption and subtitle files,” writes David Fox. It has partnered with Nexidia, which provides dialogue analysis technology, to launch Swift ReSync, a system claimed to dramatically increase output and reduce costs for subtitle and caption timing with productivity gains of 40-90%.
Swift ReSync TiGo automates the timing of new subtitles and captions as they are created, and Swift ReSync Enterprise automates the re-timing of existing subtitle and caption files to match newly edited programs, ready for automated re-airing.
By adding the Swift ReSync TiGo option to the Swift Create workstation, operators are freed from the time consuming and sometimes error-prone task of manually setting timings for each new subtitle and caption.
Using Nexidia’s patented dialogue analysis plus Softel’s proprietary algorithms, Swift Create automatically assigns timecodes to subtitles and captions. This takes account of recorded speech, shot change information, reading speed calculations and other considerations to free up valuable subtitler/captioner time. The systems support multiple languages, including Arabic (modern standard), Dutch, English (North American, Australian and UK), French (European), German, Italian, and Spanish (Castilian and Latin American).
With regulations requiring new media to be subtitled or captioned, broadcasters are struggling to deliver massive quantities of subtitled and captioned media quickly and affordably. Swift ReSync Enterprise is a back-office server-based system that automates batch re-timing of existing subtitle and caption files to match videos that have been edited for re-broadcast or re-distribution.
“We know that broadcasters and subtitle/caption houses are tasked with an ever growing list of requirements, and a need to streamline their processes to allow for an ever greater throughput, to a wide array of platforms. With Swift ReSync, Softel’s technical teams have enabled a quantum leap in productivity for our customers, thereby allowing the expanding list of both traditional and new media content to benefit quality subtitles and captions,” said Softel CEO, Sam Pemberton.
“By partnering with Nexidia, and combining their well regarded dialogue analysis systems with Softel’s proprietary technologies, we are providing solutions that not only have a tremendous return on investment for our customers, but which are accurate, reliable and serve the global multi-platform media market. This is the most significant breakthrough in the sector for over a decade.”
