Dubbing is a lucrative market, with Verified Market Research estimating that it could bring in as much as $3.6 billion by the year 2027. It is a tedious and expensive process. It can take an hour of recording studio time for five minutes of narration and one calculator pegs the price at $75 per minute.
The promise of artificial intelligence in this domain is speeding up the task by creating human-sounding calls in multiple languages. Papercup claims that its technology is being used by media giants Sky News, Discovery, and Business Insider and that it was used to translate 30 seasons of The Joy of Painting.
Over the past year, more than 300 million people have watched videos translated by Papercup.
There is a mismatch between demand and ability to fulfill it. If it is entertaining and interesting, people will watch it in any language. The sector is ready for growth.
Papercup today announced that it has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round with participation from Local Globe, Sands Capital, Sky and Guardian Media and other companies. Papercup has raised $30.5 million to date, most of which will be used to research and expand its support for foreign languages, according to Shemen.
Papercup is a company founded by Shemen and Jiameng Gao that uses artificial intelligence to create new languages for human voices in films and TV shows. Video content producers upload their videos, specify a language, wait for Papercup's teams of native speakers to quality check the audio, and get a translation with a synthetic voice.
Shemen claims that Papercup's platform can generatedubs at a scale and pace that can't be matched by manual methods. Papercup has a catalog of voices with realistic tones and feelings. In addition to films and TV, many of these have also been used in internal communications.
Shemen said that the human in the loop approach means that human translators provide quality control and guarantee accuracy, but need to be less hands on than if they were providing the whole translation. Demands for our services increased as a result of people watching more video content during the Pandemic.
There is a growing market for artificial intelligence generated media. Video- and voice-focused firms such as Respeecher, Resemble Artificial Intelligence, and Deepdub have launched artificial intelligence (ai) tools for video and voice work. Nvidia has been developing technology that alters video in a way that takes an actor's face and matches it with a new language.
There could be drawbacks. Contentdubbed with artificial intelligence could lose its local flavor if it doesn't pay attention to detail. It might not be the same thing in two languages. There are ethical questions regarding whether to recreate the voice of a person who has died.
The consequences of voices generated from actors performances are murky. According to the Wall Street Journal, studios are increasingly adding provisions in contracts that seek to use synthetic voices in place of performers when necessary, and more than one company has tried to duplicate Morgan Freeman's voice in private demos.
Papercup is a neutral platform that monitors the use of its platform for potential abuse. Shemen said that work is underway on real-time translation for content like news and sporting events, as well as the ability to more control and refine the expressivity of its artificial intelligence-generated voices.
When people watch a short video that is not in their language, they retain 40% of the information, when they are subtitled in their language, and 70% when dubbed through Papercup. Shemen said that the 40% increase on subtitling alone was a 40% improvement. Papercup makes video and audio more accessible and enjoyable for everyone.
Papercup has 38 employees in London and a translator network that spans three continents. This is expected to double by the end of the year.
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