Screen Systems achieves a long-held ambition of live automatic captioning through Speechmatics technology

There has been an increased demand in recent years for instant captioning for live events such as news and sports. The challenge of live captioning is very different from pre-prepared captioning for video content, as the turnaround time and accuracy levels are vital to its success. This increased requirement for live captioning is due to the need for more accessible content. Live captioning enables access for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers, it assists people who struggle with dialogue or are learning to understand a new language and it also allows enjoyment of the programme in public spaces where viewers may not want to have the sound turned o

Screen Systems specializes in developing products for the preparation and delivery of subtitling and value-adding information services across multiple platforms and devices and has major customers in the worldwide broadcast market.

Powered by Speechmatics, Screen Systems has taken a dramatic step forward in independent automatic speech recognition of live speakers with their new automatic live subtitling technology. Taking on the challenge of live captioning, the system takes high quality audio typical of live broadcast television programmes, and uses Speechmatics’ technology to rapidly return highly accurate, real-time text transcripts. The transcripts are so accurate that they can immediately be converted into captions and transmitted with the TV service with no editing required. The partnership between Screen Systems and Speechmatics also enables the automated production of accurate transcripts for live TV programmes, enhancing search and archive possibilities for live TV content.

“We’re excited for the future of our partnership with Speechmatics. The ability to offer live captioning solutions to our customers enhances our businesses offering and customer relationships. It also enables us to support our customers not only with non-live captioning but with fast and accurate live captions”,

says John Birch, Strategy and Business Development Manager, Screen Systems.

“The new real-time appliance model provided by Speechmatics has been extremely easy to integrate with our demonstration product. We’re eager to showcase our automatic live subtitling at this years’ IBC show to see how we can help future businesses with live captioning. We can’t wait to fully integrate Speechmatics’ live transcription technology with our product to see how dramatically it can affect real-life applications.”

Screen Systems is also planning to integrate the same great Speechmatics automatic speech recognition technology into non-live applications to support offline subtitle file creation while still offering the speed and accuracy found in the live real-time transcription application model.