UNICORN TAKES IT UP A NOTCH
AI transcription innovator Verbit – which achieved unicorn status last summer – announced the acquisition of Take 1, a firm specialising in transcription, access and localisation services for the media and entertainment sectors. Bolstering Verbit’s quest for global expansion, the move follows recent acquisitions of other companies including Take Note, Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) and US Captioning. Helping global media brands such as NPR and Warner Bros reach wider audiences through start-to-finish transcription and captioning services,
Take 1 provides localisation and access services to the media and entertainment industry. Verbit aims to capitalise on Take 1’s unique expertise in the fields of unscripted production workflows, Ofcom and FCC compliance and multi- language audio descriptions, as well as enhancing its performance and delivery of UK English language requests. “The addition of Take 1 advances Verbit as the leading partner to deliver on every media access need, including captioning, transcription and audio description,” says Tom Livne, CEO and founder of Verbit. “I’m excited to provide
enhanced service designed to meet our joint customers’ growing post- production needs, while investing more in the UK and European regions.” “This is such an exciting new chapter in the Take 1 story,” adds Take 1 founder and president Dom Bourne. “Our secret to success, since starting the company in 1998, has always been to evolve according to the industry’s needs. With Verbit, we can look forward to continuing to do this by offering new services like live captioning, powered by Verbit’s AI solutions. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”
NEW HORIZONS FOR EXTENDED REALITY
Immersive entertainment specialist Meptik has been bought by Disguise, in a bid to accelerate the global deployment of world-class immersive productions. Meptik is the mastermind behind the creation of dynamic virtual worlds commissioned by major film studios, lifestyle brands and musical artists; Disguise is recognised for its market- leading extended reality workflow, which has powered live entertainment productions for the likes of Katy Perry and Billie Eilish. Both companies will continue to operate as separate entities. However, the two will work together to produce new solutions, create product road maps and drive innovative standards in entertainment technology. “Meptik has been a trusted partner of Disguise for many years, growing to excel at bringing out the very best capability for Disguise solutions. Given that we have both been, in the past two years, bringing extended reality and immersive entertainment to the world, this acquisition would expand on these efforts and lead the next era for extended reality
ENCO has acquired TranslateTV, which marks a decisive move to capture the Spanish translation market. The acquisition provides ENCO with a broader reach into multi-generational Hispanic television. Using TTV’s patented software, ENCO will offer broadcasters an on-premises option for advanced translation of Spanish-language TV captioning in real time. Plans to develop a global solution specific to AV applications are also in the works. “Integrated with our enCaption automated captioning and transcription solution, we will enable this technology to natively accept live and pre-recorded TRANSLATION INNOVATION
audio feeds and convert them to text. Our same workflow will inject these translations onto multiple consumer platforms, presenting live, accurate captions on TV sets, desktop, laptops and mobile devices. We will develop and innovate the TTV platform for new applications, while bringing 24/7 support to the existing TTV client base,” says ENCO president Ken Frommert. He adds that with Sentinel, another acquisition, ENCO’s customers “can monitor caption quality from ingest to transmission, while cleaning up inaccuracies, improving timeliness and providing documentation in response to FCC complaints”.
and metaverse experiences,” says Disguise CEO Fernando Küfer.
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