ENCO's enCaption4 NDI Compatibility Feature To Debut At IBC

ENCO is to showcase a new speech-to-text engine for its enCaption4 solution for the first time in Europe at IBC2018.

The engine takes real-time accuracy to new levels, along with workflow efficiencies that range from NDI compatibility to captioning for live and on-demand streams.
 
The latest improvements in accuracy include a dictionary database that has, for the first time, been expanded to 29 languages in time for IBC, making enCaption4 a viable solution with true ROI value for broadcasters worldwide. Leveraging breakthroughs in machine-learning technology, ENCO's patented, Artificial Intelligence-driven solution allows new languages to be added on short notice. Furthermore, integration with popular newsroom computer systems from ENPS and Octopus among others takes advantage of news scripts and rundowns to learn and validate the spelling of local names and terminology.
 
"With more than three times the language support of previous generations, enCaption4 is now helping broadcasters around the world to reduce or eliminate the rising costs and short-notice staffing challenges of real-time stenocaptioners," said Ken Frommert, president, ENCO. "We have significantly raised the bar for accuracy in live captioning environments and have surpassed the speed of professional human captioners. We're helping our customers make an immediate on-air impact in news, sports and other programming with automated closed captioning."
 
EnCaption4's higher speed benchmark closes the gap between live speech and the corresponding caption display for an overall improved viewer experience, with accuracy rates now regularly exceeding 90 percent.
 
Interoperable Workflows with enCaption
For the first time in Europe, ENCO will demonstrate enCaption's new NDI compatibility, which simplifies the captioning workflow by eliminating the need for specialised encoding hardware. enCaption4 can now automatically generate captions through its NDI input stream, and output an NDI signal with captions keyed directly on top of the video stream. This interoperability also offers a strong and reliable solution for accurate closed captioning within live web and social media streams, such as Facebook Live.
 
"While online video distribution is not subject to the same stringent closed captioning regulations as broadcast TV, the use of captions ensures a larger audience for any online video," Mr Frommert said. "Advocacy groups for the hard of hearing are also actively pushing for online video programs to contain captions. And many watching video on portable devices in public places prefer to keep their volume down and turn on captions instead."
 
In further support of captioning needs for online video, ENCO will demonstrate its collaborative solution with StreamGuys – co-exhibiting at ENCO's IBC stand, 8.A59 – for the automatic generation of captioning in live and on-demand streams. The workflow covers both transcriptions of new recordings, and captions for pre-recorded files that exist in the archives. Users also have the power to search the captioned content and can export the resulting captioning files (SRT or VTT), and save transcripts of any selected media content for later use.
 
IBC2018 takes place from 14-18 September at the RAI Exhibition and Conference Centre in Amsterdam.

www.enco.com