XL8 Drives Affordable Translation and Subtitling for FAST Channel Market

AI-based Machine Translation models and MediaCAT platform streamline global content delivery and level the playing field for cost-effective localization services

San Jose, CA - April 3, 2023 - XL8 Inc., a Silicon Valley tech company providing AI-powered Machine Translation technology optimized for media content, is broadening its translation and subtitling support for the rapidly growing Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) over-the-top (OTT) market. The company has expanded its library of context aware language pairs and increased the capabilities of its MediaCAT platform, resulting in streamlined translation workflows, and more accurate and affordable localized content delivery.

With global content consumption surging, traditional human-based localization methods can become costly, especially as the demand for non-English language content and less commonly requested language pairs – for example, Turkish to Spanish – exhausts the already limited global pool of qualified linguists and corresponding LSP’s. XL8’s expanded AI-powered machine translation and synthesized dubbing resources provide a cost-effective complement for high-quality, affordable translation services.

“Organizations want to maximize their reach and return from global content, but doing so can incur additional localization costs as well as risk and uncertainty about which content will resonate with global viewers,” said Josh Pine, Chief Revenue Officer at XL8. “What good is it to own a catalog of content with global rights if it's too expensive to localize for many of the markets where it will be distributed? If our industry continues to localize the traditional way, it will just be impossible to keep up economically.”

FAST has several advantages over traditional linear TV broadcasting: easier and less costly channel creation and management; cost-effective content delivery using the open internet, and an attractive model for expanding advertiser demographics.

These new market opportunities require new tools, and XL8 is enhancing its MediaCAT platform to enhance and widen localization workflow collaboration among content owners, distributors, linguists and LSPs.

This seamless AI-driven cloud-based solution easily scales up for the massive content volume handled by large traditional localization facilities, or down for freelance users working on only two or three titles monthly. Further, XL8 has integrated its subtitling editor into MediaCAT, allowing users to make translation edits and corrections in real time within the platform. MediaCAT’s “open” environment allows localization service providers working in a specific market, to invite freelance linguists who special in certain languages, to easily step in and collaborate on a project, lowering localization costs and increasing accuracy.

As XL8 continually trains its AI engines to handle new language pairs, the company is seeing average improvements of 10% to 15% in localization translation quality, enabling them to reach up to 95% accuracy in many cases.

“Technology can help monetize FAST market distribution by lowering the barriers to entry for non-English speaking content,” said Tim Jung, founder and CEO at XL8. “Together with the right combination of human capabilities, our AI-powered machine translation along with smart media, subtitling and dubbing tools helps increase consistency and reduce risks by providing high-quality, cost-effective translations that support multiple dialects, formalities, and colloquial phrases for diverse audiences worldwide.”

XL8 is also expanding its live subtitling engine into the online video conferencing world with a new app delivering accurate real-time translation and live subtitling during multi-language Zoom meetings. Stay tuned for more information.

About XL8.ai

XL8 was founded in 2019 by technical executives from Google and Apple, both with an advanced degree in Computer Science from Columbia University. A Silicon Valley tech company at its core, XL8 takes AI-powered machine translation (MT), specially optimized for media content, to the next level. Its advanced technology allows significantly more efficient workflows by providing in-line editing, automated media transcription with time coding, automated subtitling, synthesized voice dubbing, real-time meeting interpretation, and live subtitling. XL8’s uniquely specialized translation engines have been built from the ground up utilizing professionally trained, human-perfected subtitles curated from the media industry’s top content producers. XL8’s “secret sauce” offers media focused translation accuracy that is up to 40% higher than other generally available MT services.

XL8’s translation technology stands out from its competitors by using Context Awareness models to better translate colloquial phrases, thereby actually “localizing” content instead of simply translating it “word for word.” Furthermore, XL8’s translation engines can incorporate specific language formalities by recognizing the relationships among the characters in a show. Since its inception, XL8 has surpassed translating 800,000 hours of content and more than 1.6 billion words, and currently supports more than 77 tier 1 language pairs.

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For more information, contact:

USA: Season Skuro, +1-818-903-8205 / seasons@bubbleagency.com UK: Shawn Belluigi, +44 (0) 7754 553 798 / shawnb@bubbleagency.com