AI enables automated captioning and subtitling solution from Broadstream

This is its first new product launch since the acquisition of Screen Subtitling Systems. Screen specialises in developing products and solutions for the preparation and delivery of subtitles and captions, including value-added information services across multiple platforms and devices.

David Bowes, president and CEO, BroadStream, said: “We’ve been working very hard to combine the two teams together under one umbrella brand since the acquisition. VoCaption represents a great joint effort between our development and engineering teams.”

The new BroadStream engineering team incorporated AI in the form of a speech-to-text processing engine to create an automated solution that can be used to support live captioners or provide captioning where live captioners are not available – and do so at a fraction of the cost of human captioning. The company claims it delivers significant quality improvements over previous AI efforts that will benefit hearing-disadvantaged viewers, as well as viewers in locations where television is available, but without sound.

Melissa Preslar, chief operating officer, BroadStream, said: “While many will say machine captions are not as accurate as humans, or they’ve tried it before and it wasn’t good enough, we’ve watched AI technology improve dramatically over the last few years, and find it to be on a par and sometimes better than humans with quality audio, and it will only get better and better.

“In addition, broadcasters tell us that even when a few errors do pop up, the significantly lower cost for VoCaption is too good to pass up,” she added.

VoCaption will be available as part of OASYS Integrated Playout, as well as with the Polistream subtitle inserter. A standalone solution that integrates with third party caption inserters will also be available, along with a non-broadcast version for live on-premise captions at events, meetings, briefings, and presentations.

“We are especially excited about VoCaption’s integration with OASYS Integrated Playout and our Polistream Caption & Subtitle Transmission system, as these options will enable broadcasters to reduce their hardware investment and take advantage of the automation from OASYS along with the great features that Polistream and VoCaption deliver,” Bowes said. “Plus, many of Screen’s customers have requested a playout solution from Screen that provides all the features they need for playout with a tight integration to Screen’s subtitling and value-add products.”