M+E Daily

Iyuno stepped into the world of subtitling 29 Feb. during the ITS Localisation event in London, exploring complicated workflows, challenges, and evolving quality standards.

Technology, distribution, and innovation have come together, shaping the future of the industry, according to Iyuno.

During the panel session “The Art of Subtitling: Navigating Challenges, Workflows, and Quality Standards,” moderator Vanessa Lecomte, localisation operations manager at BBC Studios, said: “We have been talking extensively this morning about AI dubbing.”

Now, however, “we’re going to focus on the art of subtitling, which has also undergone quite a lot of technological revolution,” she said. “As an operations manager, I’m always seeking efficiencies.”

Noting that this was his first time at ITS, Niclas Ekstedt, managing director, Sweden, at Iyuno, said he was with the company for the past 10 years, working on dubbing and building up the company’s dubbing organisation.

He then expanded into subtitling about five years ago.

“The streaming business was a big game changer for us,” he went on to tell attendees. When the pandemic happened, “we saw a huge increase in demand, which also demanded faster turnarounds for us,” he said.

“So that was a challenge … . Kind of at the end of the pandemic, it was just like someone pulled the plug,” he noted.

It was like a “gold rush for subtitling, [and it] challenged everyone because all the vendors … had huge capacity restraints and it forced us to look at our business model and to improve efficiencies,” he explained.

He added: “I think that was a good opportunity for AI to enter the market at that point. We started with it already before, but it was a good entry point … . It helped us to really improve on our efficiencies with faster turnarounds and smoother workflows. And, coming out of the pandemic and I would say around the beginning of last year, we started to see more volumes flatten out.”

But he said: “Now, again, there’s a lot of challenges with the economic situation and with the strikes,” so lower volumes are expected for this year.

He later said that the “new technology efficiencies, together with the traditional qualities right now, probably [creates] a combination for subtitling where AI takes care of the time coding of the templates, formatting of templates and then basic translations. And then we have humans taking care of really the important post edit and the QC phase and making sure [about] textual awareness and to make sure that it is authentic in the respective language … while also maintaining the creative content of the original.”

Also speaking during the panel session was Nicky McBride, global business development and client relationships consistency and continuity at Iyuno.

ITS Localisation was presented by MESA in association with the Content Localisation Council and Smart Content Council, and sponsored by Dubformer, Iyuno, AppTek, EIDR, Blu Digital Group, OOONA, Papercup, and Deluxe.