The BBC on Wednesday announced a “virtual voiceover” technology pilot, “Today in Video,” to transmit short video news packages in multiple languages, “using automatic translation and synthetic voice technology.”
Here’s a bit on how it works:
The tool, built by BBC News Labs, amalgamates existing technologies and allows a single editor to generate multi-lingual voiceovers on top of an existing video package and script. The script is translated automatically, edited by a journalist, and converted into a computer-generated voiceover. As the project develops automatic subtitles will be added.
Sounds nerdy, but this is a big step: https://t.co/U1iv1VY1VB. Using machine translation to extend BBC digital content into new languages
— Jim Egan (@jimegan1) December 16, 2015
The pilot is launching with support for Russian and Japanese. “We know there is a real need for impartial news in Russia,” a spokeswoman told me. The choice was also influenced by the availability of synthetic voices; not all languages are currently available.
Here’s a video of how it looks in action; the journalist can choose his or her favorite synthetic voices, with male and female options.
Congrats to @dmitryshishkin @bbcworld on your audio virtual translation launch. Japanese sounds spot on! https://t.co/fdw9I6U3WJ
— Amy Webb (@webbmedia) December 16, 2015
You can also watch that above video, translated into Japanese and including some subtitles, here.
