M+E Connections

Over the last few years, one of TransPerfect’s key areas of focus has been developing tools and services for the media and entertainment industry. Specifically, these services have centered around subtitling, captioning, dubbing and technology to support the localization of content — enabled through the launch of its MediaNEXT cloud-based localization solution in 2018.

In line with the exponential growth of video content facing content creators and distributors, the solution was designed to help clients meet their media localization requirements. It was also built to help increase efficiencies and productivity when carrying out media localization projects.

When developing this platform for M&E businesses, TransPerfect wanted to ensure that the platform would be able to scale in the future as data volumes continue to increase. It also had to be able to support TransPerfect’s global footprint and its ability to execute on an international scale.

The company therefore recognized a need to build in automation and the ability to quickly transfer files between teams and geographies from the outset in order to minimize latency issues when sending and receiving large data sets, which can reach hundreds of terabytes per project.

This would make it easier to scale services as required, meet the industry’s evolving data demands and build new product capabilities.

Faced with this need to automate processes in order to streamline key workflows and ensure scalability, TransPerfect required a solution that would tick all the boxes without adding further complexity for its employees and customers. Finally, the solution had to be flexible enough to connect to multiple different systems within TransPerfect’s product offering.

We deal with a huge amount of data, as well as a range of workflows involved in the transportation and delivery of content and other assets. This complexity can create challenges when it comes to scalability, hence our need to embrace automation. Automation is not a one off process. You can always find more things to automate. So it was in this context that we first started looking at Orchestrator.

Kick-starting the automation journey

After testing several different solutions, TransPerfect turned to IBM Aspera Enterprise and its Orchestrator capabilities to automate its high-volume workflows. Aspera Enterprise is an industry standard for transferring files and large data sets with intelligent automation and powerful security on managed networks or the public internet. The solution ticked all the boxes, providing TransPerfect with a platform that could integrate into its existing infrastructure without any technological upheaval.

IBM Aspera Enterprise combines next-generation transport technologies with the full suite of IBM Aspera enterprise applications, including Orchestrator. TransPerfect deployed Orchestrator to automate its entire end-to-end process including logic to select the transcoding profile. All ingest processes, including proxying analyses, are now carried out using Orchestrator – transforming workflows by streamlining key processes and driving efficiency.


Minimal training was required for internal teams, enabling employees to start using the solution straight away, while Orchestrator’s connectivity meant that it could be seamlessly integrated across multiple systems.

Aspera’s flexibility and ease of use has been especially beneficial during the pandemic with employees all working remotely. Although TransPerfect’s teams are used to working virtually and across multiple sites, having the IBM Aspera infrastructure integrated with TransPerfect’s existing virtualized processes has given employees all the tools needed to execute projects with minimal disruption and ensure business continuity.

A platform for future innovation

Aspera Enterprise and its Orchestrator capabilities have helped TransPerfect quickly and easily move large amounts of content between locations, using automation and the solution’s high-speed file transfer functionality to accelerate digital pipelines for its customers around the world.

As a result, the turnaround times of large media files have been significantly reduced, especially when transferring across geographies where latency has traditionally been an issue. As well as accelerating projects, the time saved in file transfers can be used for tasks such as production and quality control, all helping to improve the customer experience.

IBM Aspera technology has also empowered TransPerfect to continue innovating over the last two years, as illustrated by the recent launch of its remote recording solution called StudioNEXT.

This platform uses cloud-based recording technology to completely invert the industry’s traditional business model by bringing the studio to the actors. Voice talent can now remotely attend recording sessions and create professional-quality voiceovers directly in the cloud.

This capability has been particularly relevant amid the lockdowns and social distancing measures enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic, providing valuable business continuity for film and TV studios. Orchestrator functionality has helped TransPerfect accelerate time to market, letting it focus on providing solutions that can transform the industry.

Aspera Enterprise’s Orchestrator seamlessly integrates with each product update, significantly reducing development time and product cycles. TransPerfect can now develop on top of its current infrastructure to easily enhance and scale its platform as and when it needs to.
Orchestrator has certainly been a catalyst to innovate with new solutions and fill gaps in the market faster than we would have previously been able to.

With key automation components such as Orchestrator already in place, we were able to dedicate more time towards identifying opportunities for innovation and delivering new capabilities — such as remote recording — to our customers.

* By Eric Blassin, Executive Director, Media Tech, Translations.com, A TransPerfect Company and and IBM Aspera