CaptionSync Delivers WebVTT Output
AST has released a new caption output format for CaptionSync called WebVTT, a format that supports HTML5 players. Although the WebVTT spec is not yet finalized, AST is enthusiastic about HTML5 and so is adopting early support. We expect the WebVTT to evolve further, and will give modifications to this format top priority. HTML5 is becoming a preferred method of video streaming on mobile devices, which generally do not support Flash.
AST To Present at AccessU in Austin, May 16th
AST co-founder, Kevin Erler will be presenting a session on captioning, “Techniques for Captioning Educational Material” discussing the many approaches to captioning video material. The session will highlight the pros and cons of each approach, including issues of accuracy, cost, timeliness, and scalability. If your captioning volume is growing exponentially, this talk will help you understand the workflow issues related to different technical approaches.
AccessU is presented by Knowbility and offers training sessions on a wide variety of Accessibility topics. Come and learn how to make equal access part of everything you do.
AST Adds Two New Services
New – Production Transcripts
Did you know that AST offers time-stamped transcripts of your media file?
Typically used in video production and for documenting interviews, focus groups, and depositions, time-coded transcripts, help editors quickly locate precise segments for editing — saving significant time in post-production. Production Transcripts are cost-effective and can give you a valuable tool to spotlight precise areas in your video.
New – Caption Encoding Service
AST has just rolled out a new service that takes your uploaded MOV, M4V or MP4 video files and encodes either subtitles or open captions into the video. It is available for download as an MV4 file. This format is compatible with a wide range of players including QuickTime, JW Player, Flowplayer, RealPlayer, VLC, iTunes as well as iOS devices such as iPad, iPhone, and iPod. The Caption Encoding service ensures great accessibility and a broader audience. This new CaptionSync service is very cost-effective – see the supplemental price sheet on the Help page after you log in.
AST to Participate in Session at Tegrity User Conference
The upcoming Tegrity User Conference (April 18 – 20, 2012) will include a session titled “Closed Captioning Best Practices” on Friday April 20 at 9:15am. This panel session will include discussion of different approaches to captioning and what is on the horizon for captioning Tegrity presentations. AST will be participating in this session and will be on-hand to provide technical expertise on the topic. Please come by to participate in the discussion, learn about real-world experiences in captioning lecture-capture content, and get all of your captioning questions answered.
AST to exhibit at Kaltura Connect Conference
AST will be exhibiting at the annual Kaltura user and developer conference. The conference will be held in New York City on April 2nd and 3rd. On April 3rd, AST will be exhibiting our automated captioning workflow for Kaltura’s online video platform. For more information please visit the Kaltura Connect conference website.
Automatic Sync Technologies and Symphony Video, Inc. Partner to Enable Broad Adoption of Captioning Service for College Campuses
Universities and colleges across the US are working to meet requirements to deliver accessible content for hearing impaired and deaf students, faculty and community. Today, Symphony Video, Inc., creator of Ensemble Video Software, and Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) announced the completion of an integrated workflow that offers built-in management controls for streamlining video content captioning. Now institutions can aggregate captioning volumes for greater discounts, allowing faster creation of more accessible content while maximizing tight budgets.
Now in release at Syracuse University, Ensemble Video’s integrated solution features seamless captioning via Automatic Sync’s fee-based service, CaptionSync™. “Syracuse University is committed to making its video content accessible to everyone, and AST and Symphony Video help us accomplish that goal,” said Neal Coffey, manager of the Video Production Unit at Syracuse University. “We are excited about the partnership and look forward to taking advantage of the streamlined workflows with the highly accurate captioning from AST. This new feature set will save Syracuse University users time and money.”
Ensemble Video is an award-winning video management platform recognized for a suite of features developed with participation from higher education institutions, including Syracuse University, the University of Illinois, Clemson University, and Colgate University.
“Our vision is focused on the needs of higher education. We are thrilled to collaborate with Automatic Sync to provide a tool that lets institutions easily and cost effectively create accessible content throughout the campus,” said Andy Covell, founder and CEO of Symphony Video, Inc., creator of Ensemble Video Software.
“At Automatic Sync, we recognize the challenges that institutions face as they try to caption more and more content,” said Brent Robertson, co-founder, Automatic Sync Technologies. “This collaboration offers tremendous value for customers in addressing those challenges.”
About Symphony Video
Ensemble Video, Symphony Video’s flagship product, is a rich media management and publishing system used by hundreds of educational institutions. With an easy-to-use interface, extensive feature set and integration with Wowza Media Server, Ensemble Video is an obvious choice for organizations seeking a cost-effective platform that enables users from across the organization to manage, share and distribute video. To learn more about Ensemble Video, visit www.ensemblevideo.com. To setup a trial or demo of Ensemble Video visit the website at: www.ensemblevideo.com/contactus, or call +1 (315) 753-0094.
About CaptionSync™
CaptionSync is an innovative, proprietary software service powered by Automatic Sync Technologies, providing high-quality automated captioning with unrivaled speed at a fraction of the cost of conventional captioning. The simple user interface accepts electronic submission of program media and returns standard-format caption files for web-media such as Flash, QuickTime and Windows Media, for platforms such as Mediasite, Brightcove, Echo360, Panopto and YouTube, or for DVD authoring and broadcast. CaptionSync can simultaneously generate caption output for multiple types of media from a single submission. AST’s CaptionSync provides the Gold Standard in accuracy because it does not rely on speech recognition software and its inherent errors — AST stands apart from other providers of automated captioning for this reason.
About Automatic Sync Technologies
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) is an industry-leading provider of web-based captioning services for thousands of customers worldwide, enabling accurate video and rich media search and retrieval to public and private sector enterprise. Formed in 1998 and funded in part by an SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant, AST pioneered the automated captioning technology to deliver the most cost-efficient, high-quality, automatic captioning service available today. AST helps government agencies and educational institutions comply with regulations to make advanced communication services accessible to hard of hearing and deaf audiences. Contact AST by email info@automaticsync.com, online at www.automaticsync.com, or call +1 (877) 278-7962.
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All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
Press Contacts
Automatic Sync Technologies
Kaye McKinzie
Quatrain PR
(415) 927-7365
Automatic Sync Technologies Integrates with the Kaltura Online Video Platform
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) today announced its partnership with Kaltura (www.kaltura.com), developer of the first and only open source online video platform. AST’s CaptionSync™ technology now fully integrates with Kaltura’s platform and supports enhanced features in its products and applications, including Kaltura MediaSpace™, an out-of-the-box video portal, so users can search, browse, watch, share and upload videos, and video presentations. CaptionSync enhances Kaltura’s caption support by automating the workflow for requesting and receiving captions. The integration partnership paves the way for enhanced search features, both within videos and across video libraries, and will help advance searchable and accessible digital media in education.
“We are extremely pleased to partner with Kaltura and provide joint customers with a smooth workflow to add time-coded, synchronized captions to videos with a few clicks of the mouse,” said Kevin Erler, president of Automatic Sync Technologies. “Kaltura MediaSpace application is an innovative and creative shared learning environment perfect for higher education. We are excited to be a part of the next-generation of education technology.”
With the combined Kaltura/CaptionSync integration, file transfers are completely automated, allowing streamlined production of accessible, discoverable, and searchable video content quickly and efficiently. Education technology centers can move across complete libraries and provide captioning in record time. Whether transcoding between LMS systems or enabling video management in an independent environment, or configuring Kaltura MediaSpace as a central, YouTube-like environment, the combined format and use possibilities are endless.
“We are delighted to enter this partnership with AST, our newest addition to the Kaltura Application Exchange, enhancing the wide range of solutions offered to Kaltura publishers,” said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura’s chairman and CEO. “Together we can continue to help educational institutions enhance their learning results by using integrated video with accurate and high-quality captioning that is automated within the Kaltura Platform workflow.”
Complete and accurate closed captions are requirements for thousands of video publishers, who must satisfy state and federal mandates for content accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing audiences. Two major benefits of incorporating captions is to make video searchable and to improve viewer comprehension. Captioned text reinforces learning with text search for easy back-reference and review. These are important training features for multilingual students.
“AST has been our captioning service to make our videos accessible to the widest audience, which helps us meet the regulatory mandates,” said Ben D. Zastrocky, Director, Educational Technology Center at Metro State College of Denver. “We also use Kaltura to provide our online video management, including lecture capture and now MediaSpace for instructors and students. Having these two vendors working together to advance the capabilities of available technology means we can be assured of smooth operations and concentrate on delivering the best possible education solutions for our users.”
About Kaltura
Kaltura provides the world’s first Open Source Online Video Platform. Over 120,000 media & entertainment companies, enterprises, SMBs, educational institutions, service providers, platform vendors, and system integrators use Kaltura’s flexible platform to enhance their websites, web-services, and web-platforms with advanced customized video, photo and audio functionalities. Kaltura’s features and products enable users to easily deploy custom workflows involving video creation, ingestion, publishing, management, syndication, engagement, monetization and analysis. The free community-supported self-hosted software and source-code is available for download at www.kaltura.org. A commercial version of the software can be obtained at www.kaltura.com along with Kaltura services such as streaming, hosting, transcoding, analytics, ad serving, support and maintenance packages, and professional development. Founded in 2006, New York-based Kaltura is also a founding member of the ‘Open Video Alliance’ (www.openvideoalliance.org), a coalition of organizations dedicated to fostering open standards for online video. For more information: http://www.kaltura.com, http://www.kaltura.org and http://exchange.kaltura.com/.
About CaptionSync™
CaptionSync is an innovative, proprietary software service powered by Automatic Sync Technologies, providing high-quality automated captioning with unrivaled speed at a fraction of the cost of conventional captioning. The simple user interface accepts electronic submission of program media and returns standard-format caption files for web-media such as Flash, QuickTime and Windows Media, for platforms such as Mediasite, Brightcove, Echo360, Panopto and YouTube, or for DVD authoring and broadcast. CaptionSync can simultaneously generate caption output for multiple types of media from a single submission. AST’s CaptionSync provides the Gold Standard in accuracy because it does not rely on speech recognition software and its inherent errors — AST stands apart from other providers of automated captioning for this reason.
About Automatic Sync Technologies
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) is an industry-leading provider of web-based captioning services for thousands of customers worldwide, enabling accurate video and rich media search and retrieval to public and private sector enterprise. Formed in 1998 and funded in part by an SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant, AST pioneered the automated captioning technology to deliver the most cost-efficient, high-quality, automatic captioning service available today. AST helps government agencies and educational institutions comply with regulations to make advanced communication services accessible to hard of hearing and deaf audiences. Contact AST by email info@automaticsync.com, online at www.automaticsync.com, or call +1 (877) 278-7962.
# # #
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
Press Contacts
Automatic Sync Technologies
Kaye McKinzie
Quatrain PR
(415) 927-7365
Kaltura, Inc.
Lisa Bennett
Director of Public Relations & Marketing
(212) 981-3965
Captioning for Elluminate/Collaborate Archives
CaptionSync can now accept Blackboard Collaborate presentations (Elluminate archives) for captioning. (more…)
Automatic Sync Technologies and Tegrity Partner to Automate Fully Captioned Lecture Capture
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) today announced a partnership with Tegrity, the leading campus-wide lecture capture service and a division of McGraw Hill Higher Education. (more…)
Automatic Sync Technologies Added to GSA Schedule 70 to Provide Compliant Closed-Captioning of Digital Video to Federal Agencies
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) today announced that its services are now available to federal government agencies purchasing under the General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70. (more…)
Automatic Sync Technologies Announces Closed Captioning in Spanish
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) today announced support for closed captioning of digital video content in Spanish. AST’s CaptionSync™ technology now delivers full text transcripts and time-coded synchronized captions for videos in Latin American Spanish. (more…)
Automatic Sync Technologies Integrates with Brightcove Video to Enable Automated Workflow for Producers
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) today announced it has partnered with Brightcove, the leading cloud content services company. (more…)
NBC Learn Teams Up With Automatic Sync Technologies To Caption Its Video Archives
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) is proud to announce that the company was selected to be the captioning provider for NBC Learn. AST’s CaptionSync™ service will provide closed captioning for learning videos that are available on NBCLearn.com. (more…)
CaptionSync Delivers Captions for Powerpoint
AST is pleased to announce support for the STAMP captioning plugin for Powerpoint. (more…)
AST Announces Spanish language captioning
AST is pleased to announce that Spanish language transcription, captioning and subtitling are now available through our CaptionSync service. (more…)
CaptionSync Delivers Captions for Camtasia
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) today announced its CaptionSync automated captioning system delivers caption output for TechSmith’s newly released Camtasia Studio 7.1 and Camtasia for Mac. Camtasia users can now easily add captions to their videos faster and more affordably than before, thereby enhancing accessibility and usability. Additionally the captions are completely searchable, empowering viewers to quickly find relevant points in the video. These caption files are available immediately at no additional cost to AST users. (more…)
ReelSurfer Partners with Automatic Sync
ReelSurfer and Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) are pleased to announce a partnership to facilitate transcription and captioning of video assets from within ReelSurfer’s web-based video search platform. ReelSurfer is now fully integrated with AST’s CaptionSync service, allowing ReelSurfer users to caption videos with just a few mouse clicks. (more…)
Sonic Foundry offers webinar on captioning
Sonic Foundry offer a live webinar on captioning in Mediasite on June 25, 2010. The webinar will be available for on-demand viewing after it is complete. (more…)
CaptionSync helps make Library of Congress webcast videos accessible
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) has been selected as a captioning provider to the United States Library of Congress. AST’s CaptionSync service will be providing closed captioning for web video appearing on the Library’s website. (more…)
AST Unveils New Website
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST), a market leader in providing offline captioning and transcription, announces the launch of their new website for users seeking an expedient way to caption content for their broadcast or web media, and for their existing customers in the Education, Government, Broadcast and Corporate sectors. (more…)
CaptionSync covered in February issue of Campus Technology
Automatic Sync Technologies’ CaptionSync service is discussed in the February issue of Campus Technology magazine. See the article called “Winning Them Over” on page 39 of this issue.
AST Announces New Improved CaptionSync Web Interface
AST is pleased to announce the release of a new, improved CaptionSync web interface. Thanks to feedback from our many users, we have improved the functionality of our CaptionSync system and made it easier to use. Behind the scenes, the new system offers improved reliability thanks to extensive redundancy. For existing users, a brief tour of the changes can be found here. (note that the URL for the login page has changed, so if you bookmarked it, please use the login link in the upper right corner of this window instead). A brief tour oriented towards new users can be found here.
Automatic Sync Expands in Europe
Automatic Sync Technologies, a U.S. based company, funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, is expanding services in Europe with the addition of Martin Laycock, European Director of Sales and Marketing. Martin has over twenty years experience in video resources for the Higher Education sector in the UK. Over the past five years he has been developing reusable accessible online video content and lecture capture systems. (more…)
Automatic Sync Partners with Ooyala
Automatic Sync Technologies is pleased to announce a partnership with Ooyala to facilitate the captioning of Backlot videos. Captioning videos satisfies several federal and state laws, which mandate that video and audio content be made accessible to people with disabilities. In addition to satisfying legal mandates, captioning offers benefits to a much broader set of users. Research shows that reading comprehension improves when people are offered both audio and visual information. Non-native English speaking individuals benefit from reading and hearing the words simultaneously. (more…)
Automatic Sync Partners with Sonic Foundry
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) announced that the company has partnered with Sonic Foundry to integrate automated closed captioning into Mediasite®, the leading lecture capture platform for colleges and universities. By easily facilitating the captioning process, campuses can meet accessibility mandates and provide students a richer learning environment. (more…)
AST Selected by California Community College System
AST has been selected as a preferred vendor for the California Community College “Distance Education Captioning & Transcription” (DECT) grant. This grant will directly fund the captioning of qualified distance education content from California Community Colleges without the college having to pay and reclaim the costs of captioning. Funding is available on a first-come-first-served basis; please contact AST at 877-278-7962 as soon as possible if you would like to participate.
Automatic Sync Announces Digital NLE Captions
Automatic Sync Technologies’ CaptionSync automated captioning system now delivers line-21 (EIA-608) closed caption post processing output which can be used directly in Avid, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, and other non-linear editors (NLEs). With a simple print-to-tape, NLE users can now caption NTSC D1 tapestock such as Beta SP, digi-Beta, or DVCPro without a gen-loss, shipping tapes, or any special encoding hardware. Digital NLE caption post-processing is available immediately on a per-submission basis to AST broadcast users. (more…)
California State University System selects AST for captioning services
The California State University System signed a system-wide agreement with Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) to provide transcript and captioning services for the 23 Universities. The California State University System is among the leading systems in the nation committed to and delivering accessible material to students, faculty and the community. (more…)
