Dubbing – i.e., replacing the original audio track of some video, be it a YouTube video, film or TV series, with a new soundtrack – has been around for many years now. However, the interesting thing that has happened to the dubbing industry is the fact that it now involves artificial intelligence, also known as AI.
This article aims to shed light on what dubbing is, just in case you don’t know, give you a quick summary of artificial intelligence and then properly shed light on some of the benefits and considerations to take into account when it comes to AI dubbing. So, without further ado, it’s time to jump into this tantalizing topic.
What is Dubbing?
There are quite a few terms that go around that people just automatically assume they know and understand. Two of those terms are dubbing and artificial intelligence. It’s time to start with the former, namely dubbing.
As touched on above, dubbing is when you replace the original audio track with a new track. Now, you might be wondering to yourself, why would anyone do this? Well, think about language variation. A lot of films that you watch nowadays are written in a certain language, for example, English or Spanish. However, not everybody speaks these languages and not everybody wants to have to only rely on subtitles. Therefore, through the act of dubbing, you’re able to replace what an individual has said with a new language. So, the original dialogue is essentially replaced with a synchronized translation.
Good dubbing aims to match the individual or actors’ lip movements and expressions with the same tone of voice and words. Doing this is quite tricky and takes a lot of time, therefore, bringing in faster, more reliable and more efficient ways of dubbing, for example through AI dubbing, is something that is currently trending.
What is Artificial Intelligence in Dubbing?
Again, another word that crops up quite a lot that many people assume they know and understand but, probably don’t, is artificial intelligence. So, to put it quickly – AI is a technology that allows machines to essentially think and act like humans. This means that they emulate human intelligence.
In terms of dubbing, it means that technology is set in place that can learn and understand what the speakers are saying and then either translate that or put that into dubbing, without somebody manually having to listen to the audio and self-translate it.
The Benefits of AI Dubbing
As with anything, there is good and bad. A lot of people think that dubbing can sometimes reduce the impact of a movie, as it’s meant to be watched in French, for example, and created in French and therefore trying to watch it in English is just going to lose the authentic impact.
However, dubbing is also a means to an end, it allows people to understand what is happening. Additionally, the incorporation of AI dubbing allows for a faster and more accurate version of dubbing.
It’s time to look at some of the benefits that come with AI dubbing:
- Speed: one of the biggest benefits is the fact that it’s a lot faster. AI, as a whole, operates at an incredible pace. You can essentially get the transcript of an entire film through AI dubbing software, in a matter of minutes. This would have taken hours and hours of an actual person trying to do a series or movie.
- Accurate translations and accents: furthermore, humans are excellent with their speech, however, trying to compete with a robot version, can be tricky. You see, AI can delve into every type of accent and form of speech, creating an AI version dub of a movie series, that is far more accurate than what one person could do.
- Less planning: additionally, having AI dubbing means that you have all the tools at your disposal. You don’t have to plan for dubbing actors, specialists and voice technicians to come in. You can simply implement the tool by yourself, receive the AI dubbing, make tweaks if you feel like something should change and then promote the video, movie or TV series that you’re doing.
The Challenges of AI Dubbing
As mentioned above, for every good there is also a little bit of challenge. This is much the same when it comes to AI dubbing. Here you will learn a little bit more about some of the challenges that you may face:
- Tech dependency: the fact that you can move away from having to interact with humans for dubbing and therefore have less planning, means that you also become more dependent on technology. AI dubbing technology is purely based on advanced technology, therefore, if something ever goes wrong with the tech or malfunctions somewhere, you are left to your own devices.
- Lack of human touch: as great as it is to have an AI dubbing system that can pick up the best accents, it also means that it could be too perfect. You lose the error that comes with human nature, which can often be the soul of a movie. The way that an actor’s voice breaks, which is something that perhaps AI can’t do, can sometimes be the make or break of a film, as it shows depth of emotion.
Well, there you have it, these are some of the most important aspects that you need to consider when looking into AI dubbing.