Audio Visual Translation – a market with untapped growth potential

No one is quite certain how valuable the AVT market is, perhaps a fraction of the overall language industry pot, but it is growing rapidly according to Dave Bryant, President and Chief Operating Officer of Dotsub, a Premium Zone sponsor at T-Update’21 Virtual.

“The entertainment industry and corporate sector is driving the market, but video is a primary story-telling medium which is creating a huge opportunity for those willing to grasp it,” he enthuses.

Surprisingly there are some Language Service Providers that avoid venturing into the field and are filing each opportunity in the ‘too difficult to handle’ filing cabinet.

“I’ve encountered more than one translation company owner who has proclaimed, almost triumphantly, that their company steers well clear of any job involving AVT,” says Bryant.

“I am always amazed that LSP owners are prepared to walk away from lucrative business, because the process looks too complex or time-consuming. Happily, it doesn’t take me long to convince them that, with Dotsub’s cloud-based support, there’s a whole income stream just waiting to be developed.”

Dave, an Englishman in New York, but latterly with US citizenship and a recently arrived US-born grandson, has spent a lifetime as a high tech entrepreneur. He has experience in many areas, including database systems and language learning software. He was recruited by Dotsub founder and chairman Michael Smolens eight years ago and is a passionate advocate for the opportunities offered to the language industry presented by Audio Visual Translation (AVT).

Unsurprisingly, the T-Update ’21 Virtual content committee were delighted to be able to select a paper that he had submitted independently. It will be looking at the AVT market and where it is likely to head in the coming years.

While the impact of the pandemic has been painful for some in the language industry, 2020 turned out to be a bumper year for Dotsub, as more and more companies resorted to audio visual content to conquer new online markets.

“We have always been a cloud-based company since it was founded in 2007, you could say we’ve been working virtually from the year dotsub,” says Dave with wry smile.

In the 14 years of the company’s existence it has teamed up with an impressive list of globally recognised names, including Apple, Adobe, IBM, Facebook, Microsoft, Airbnb all of whom have put their trust in Dotsub either wholly or picking elements of the wide spectrum of services on offer.

The cloud-based company is also currently working on a major project with LyricFind, the world’s largest lyric licencing service, delivering crowdsourced translations for their lyric back catalogue.

Apart from the household names, there are many LSPs who do turn to Dotsub for their AVT work – albeit they may either choose to make use of the full range of its services, including the recently announced addition of Machine Translation, or prefer to pick and mix what they want off the Dotsub shelf.

Dave Bryant will be delivering a Master Class during T-Update ’21 Virtual, as well as running a tool demo putting the Dotsub platform through its passes. To register for the world’s first 3D language industry conference click HERE

ELIS SURVEY 2021