Auckland: Straker Translations Limited (ASX:STG) will provide media localisation services powered by artificial intelligence for multiple TV series produced by a major
US TV studio for the Latin American market.
The NZ$1m deal for services that will be completed by March 2020 will be the first time a television studio uses an
advanced translation platform that incorporates artificial intelligence and machine translation algorithms to power
automatic speech recognition to transcribe, translate and understand the nuances of actors’ dialogue while adhering to
specific standards for sub-titling.
This significantly increases translation automation before finally being edited by human translators through technical
quality control and post-edition workflows.
Straker’s fully integrated platform enables the studio, which is undisclosed for competitive reasons, to substantially
reduce the time needed to localise TV shows by translating Latin America market, enabling quicker release times in those
markets and decreasing the risk of piracy and associated security and authentication concerns.
Straker Translations CEO and Founder, Grant Straker, said this type of new service was only possible due to the recent
upgrades made to the company’s RAY Ai media platform.
“Our RAYMedia platform has recently been upgraded to further automate sub-titling as a closed captioning process,
providing industry-leading real-time streaming and batch speed capability. Refinement of this process is key for
customers, such as TV, movie and other media production companies, who are increasingly looking to localise their
content to as many markets as quickly and efficiently as possible for use on global streaming services.
“RAYMedia is an enterprise grade, end-to-end cloud-based platform that has evolved over the past eight years to remain
at the forefront of the translation industry. By leveraging machine translations and its big data assets, it enables the
delivery of faster and more accurate translations, lowering the time and cost to deliver compared to traditional
translation services.
“While speed and accuracy are paramount, this type of AI and machine learning capability also increases the security and
quality control a media company can have over their localisation services at the content level. Straker’s RAYMedia now
enables the industry to have access to GEOIP authentication, video and script watermarking, IP security checks, secure
file transfer and anti-piracy awareness while meeting MPAA, TPN (Audit) and CDSA compliance standards. “
The deal was closed by Straker’s new Enterprise Media team in Burbank California. This team will headline Straker’s push
into media localisation - the fastest growing segment of the $50bn global translation industry.
“This team was established precisely for this type of deal. The media market is the fastest growing segment of the
translation industry and due to its rapid growth, it is hard to estimate but we believe this is a $5billion market
opportunity. It is also the market segment where demand is currently outstripping supply and ongoing innovation will be
critical to meet customer and market demands.”