Dear readers,
Our blog has moved! You can now find us at http://www.3playmedia.com/company/blog/
Thank you for your support,
3Play Media
New blog address
June 3, 2010 by 3playmediaCJ on Kaltura Webinar
April 20, 2010 by Josh Miller3Play Media recently joined the Kaltura Exchange, a global marketplace for video application developers and service providers to connect with the Kaltura platform. As part of the Exchange launch, Kaltura has asked that we join them in a webinar to talk about our application.
3Play co-founder, CJ Johnson will be live online tomorrow at 2pm EST. We’re looking forward to what will surely be a great discussion with Shay David, Kaltura’s VP of Community and Business Development, Zohar Babin, Kaltura Community Manager, and Mark Rotblat, TubeMogul’s VP of Business Development. The webinar will be moderated by Leah Belsky, Kaltura’s Director of Strategic Accounts. Register now!
Lots brewing at 3Play Media
April 20, 2010 by Josh MillerThere has been a lot of activity at 3Play Media since our last post welcoming Tole to the team. For starters, we moved our offices to Porter Square in Cambridge. More importantly, we’ve been hard at work to launch the next generation of our interactive transcription products.
The first incarnation of our interactive transcripts was launched a with MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program. The impending launch will include the ability to easily create a plugin that interacts with an existing video player and can easily be installed on a webpage with just a few lines of code that we give you. Very similar to the embed function seen with many video sites today. End users of 3Play’s plugin will be able to click any word of a transcript and jump to that segment of the video, search entire archives based on actual spoken content, and jump to specific video segments based on search results (provided we’ve processed the video of course). Very exciting for the web video world.
We also announced two exciting relationships last week: one with Kaltura, an open source online video platform, and the other with Endeca, an enterprise site search company. In both cases, we’ll be providing their customers with time-synchronized transcription solutions for their media content, ultimately providing a richer user experience.
Look out for more news soon.
3Play Welcomes Tole Khesin to the Team
February 8, 2010 by Josh Miller3Play Media is excited to announce a new team member to the executive management team, Tole Khesin. Our new director of marketing, Tole joins in conjunction with our recent seed financing.
Tole is a serial entrepreneur and fits well with the 3Play team. Previously, he co-founded MK Engineering, an energy technology company that was sold to GE Energy. He founded Digital Pickle, a media services company that was sold to Paran Holdings. He also co-founded Level 9 Technology, a software development company that continues to operate profitably.
Tole is already putting some ideas in action here. It will be an exciting few months as we accelerate forward.
Interactive transcripts: more than just closed captioning
January 29, 2010 by Josh MillerWe at 3Play Media are very excited about some work we’ve been doing in collaboration with Michael Lawson at MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program (ILP). Today marks the first public launch of the time-synchronized transcripts that we’ve talked a fair bit about, or as we like to call them: interactive transcripts. This is a great representation of what 3Play Media is all about!
Interactive transcripts live with the video file and provide an innovative user experience. Each word of the transcript is actually a link and can be clicked to jump to that exact point in the video, as described on our site.
This article, “3Play Media Reshapes Video Landscape,” by Kathryn O’Neill goes into more detail about ILP and our role in the exciting launch. It also shares some perspectives from media and speech experts on the topic.
Why is this interesting?
Efficient, low cost word-to-word alignment and transcript quality are often at odds. There are providers who offer compelling solutions that include time data with keyword analysis and search, but few can offer the same transcript quality that we can. On the other side, there are many transcription firms that offer fantastic quality, but they tend to be expensive and one-dimensional. Time synchronization would be entirely additional process and cost. All in all, our interactive transcript interface is pretty unique.
This will be the first of several such implementations in the coming months. We’ll also be incorporating cross-library search features to allow users to search across many video assets within a library, then jump to the exact segment of their choosing based on the search results.
We’re very excited about this application of the technology and are constantly exploring new tools to take advantage of an accurate, time-synchronized transcript. If you work with media or transcription, we’d love to hear what features could be useful to you. Drop us a line!
Google brings buzz to captions like never before
November 23, 2009 by Josh MillerJust the other day Google announced its intentions to automatically generate closed caption files on a select group of YouTube files. The story quickly made it to the NY Times and all over the blogosphere, as it rightfully should. The idea is to eventually rollout the capability across YouTube for all users to test. With 20 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, that’s a lot of text being created!
At its core, this is a brilliant move by Google to improve YouTube search (and advertising) capabilities. But Google’s announcement, largely because it’s Google, also puts the accessibility issue in front of the entire country for a change. Captions are mandated for much of television, but they are only beginning to get some attention on the internet, well until now. Representative Ed Markey, the same Congressman who made the original push for closed captioning on television, introduced H.R. 3101, the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009, during this session of Congress, and it currently has 19 co-sponsors. This is actually the second attempt at getting a bill passed that would mandate an improved user experience for the hearing impaired.
Thanks to one of the most talked about technology companies of our time, closed captioning is getting attention all over the internet. Anyone who works with online video is now paying attention to closed captioning. Not only are we empowering the hearing impaired, but in a virtual world that seems to be driven by search and discovery, video can now be made more “accessible” than ever.
So for a business that is centered on providing high quality, time synchronized transcripts, what does this announcement mean?
Well, it could mean a lot of things. First, let’s look into this new Google service. Google will deploy the same technology that powers Google Voice across YouTube to enable the creation of text. This means they will be using automatic speech recognition (ASR) to create the caption files. Using ASR on audio and video is not a new concept, but it’s new at this scale. We’ve commented on our experiences with ASR capbilities in the past. In fact, we’ve even played with the very engine that will be front and center for the YouTube initiative.
We’ve spoken with many people who have tested ASR solutions. Usually, if they are talking to us, they weren’t satisfied! The truth of the matter is that ASR will be good enough for some people, and it won’t be good enough for others. 80% accuracy (at its best and in studio quality recording conditions) leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, Google even admits that results can be somewhat amusing when they’re off. On the search front, the most critical keywords tend to be the most unique and, therefore, least common to be recognized accurately. Google’s announcement does not change that, it just makes an ASR solution easier to use and free to consume. In many cases, Google has likely provided a medium for people who may never have put captions on their video with the ability to do so with very little effort. Google has also made the search benefits of captions glaringly obvious.
Ultimately, the organizations that require (or believe in) high quality output for captions and search will be willing to pay for cleaned up text. There are significant benefits to the high-quality approach, whether it be accurate search results or truly legible transcripts. Branding is also a critical issue for many organizations who add a text component to their video offering.
We at 3Play Media will continue building high quality solutions that make multimedia more accessible for everyone. More people than ever are aware of the benefits of captions and time-synchronized transcripts now. We have some new product launches on the way that will build off these very benefits, and we can’t wait to show the world how their online video experience can be changed forever.
3Play at MIT WebPub
November 19, 2009 by 3playmediaCJ will be presenting at MIT’s WebPub meeting today at noon. The title of the talk is: Web Media Accessibility: Increasing Value while Decreasing Cost. CJ will be walking through the innovative workflow processes we’ve created as well as show some of our upcoming product features that will be launched publicly soon. Sure to be entertaining as well.
Date: Thursday November 19, 2009
Time: 12:00PM-1:00PM
Location: MIT Campus Building N42 Demo Center (211 Massachusetts Avenue)
Web Media Accessibility: Increasing Value while Decreasing Cost
Video University Catching On
October 16, 2009 by Josh MillerThe expansive growth of online video has clearly been driven by the likes of YouTube and Hulu, two sites that focus on very different content publishers. You’ve got the high budget sitcom across the table from the five minute, no-budget home video. And sometimes you never know which one will be more popular. Pretty amazing actually.
One group of content producers has been around for longer than both network television and the home movie maker: educational institutions. But only recently have they begun to open their doors to the non-student universe to get a peek into the lecture halls. As described by CNN, French business school HEC Paris has even handed out iPod Touch devices to all their students to encourage use of the recorded content on their iTunes U portal.
At first, universities held their video content close to their hand, only offering video lectures to the students in the class. The recordings were considered a study tool. What could be better to review your notes than the actual lecture? Slowly, the OpenCourseWare movement picked up steam and institutions, led by MIT OpenCourseWare, opened their content up to the public.
Opening up the video content has already proven to be a worthwhile exercise as it attracts positive attention to the school and displays the quality of its faculty and research, all with one of the richest experiences possible using a computer screen. It has also shown to be one of the most effective methods of capturing an international audience. The video portal giants have jumped into the activity in a big way as well. iTunes U has been one of the most popular endeavors, offering educational content from hundreds of colleges, universities, high schools, and non-profits. They have built off their podcast roots quite effectively to become one of the most popular destinations for free learning. YouTube EDU and Academic Earth are two more popular repositories. MIT World, also on iTunes U, is an example of how even content from outside the classroom is being captured to further distribute the intellectual horsepower on display within these institutions.
The amount of educational content that could be captured for online distribution is unfathomable. We’re only in the beginning stages this completely new medium for learning.
We’d love to hear about your online education experiences. Tell us about your favorite online lecture. What could be done to make iTunes U even better?
Adventures in Speech Recognition, II
August 19, 2009 by cej0208Drove to Manchester, NH and back this morning, borrowing a family member’s car for the trip. On the way up, we were listening to a well-crafted 80s mix CD, when I switched lanes, accidentally hit a button on the steering wheel’s control panel, and the music went silent! Frantically, I pulled every bell and whistle on the steering wheel to get WHAM! pumping back through the speakers, but to no avail. Then, after a couple of seconds, the voice from the GPS system says…. “Please repeat.”
I looked down, and realized I must have hit the button with the icon of the person speaking. Excellent! Something fun to play with on the drive (there’s really not much fun to look at on Route 3 unless you’re REALLY into highway construction).
Of course we started with the essential Captian Picard:
CJ: “Maximum warp!”
Car: (pause).
CJ: “Bah!”
Car: ”XM Channel Ten.” (CD stops and the Radio tunes to XM Channel Ten).
Interesting response. Let’s try something else. “Billie Jean” had been playing earlier, so naturally….
CJ: “A heee heeee.”
Car: “CD, Random Track.” (The CD is back on… now we’re listening to some delightful Devo).
That is actually pretty cool. ”Hee hee” sounds a bit like “Cee Dee”.
Then we wrapped up with an homage to Ron Burgundy.
CJ: You ate an entire wheel of cheese?
Car: “Air Conditioner.”
I’m not even sure what happened here. I guess it was acknowledging that there was, in fact, an air conditioner on board.
Next was to see if I could actually get it to do something I wanted.
CJ: “XM. Nine!”
Car: “Please repeat.”
CJ: “XM. Eight!”
Car. “Say again.”
CJ: “XM. Seven!”
Car: “XM Channel Eight.” (Radio is on again, tunes to XM Channel Eight.)
Fun stuff. So far…. yet so far to go….
Finding a Compass for Online Video
July 23, 2009 by Josh MillerThe last time you searched for a video, did you happen upon it by accident or did you have an idea of what you were looking for at the outset of your quest? If you’re anything like me, your general searches are very different from your video searches. In fact, when I look for a video clip, I tend to know exactly what segment I’m looking for – I know who’s in it, I have a general idea of what it is about, and I have a good idea where it is published online. I may have even seen it before on television. On the other hand, if I’m conducting a Google search for who knows what, I certainly don’t have a particular source in mind.
For example, if I’m looking for the hours of the Cask N’ Flagon near Boston’s Fenway Park, all I have to enter in Google is “cask n flagon boston” and I’m confident that I’ll get the link to the Cask website where their hours are posted. On the other hand, I recently searched for an SNL Jeopardy clip on Hulu, specifically one with Burt Reynolds. When I typed in “burt reynolds” into the SNL “search this show” bar I got two clips back, neither of which was the one I was looking for. I had seen the clip before so I knew what I wanted. And you SNL Jeopardy enthusiasts out there know full well that there are more than two segments with Burt Reynolds!
Searching "burt reynolds" within SNL on Hulu only yields two clips
This presented a disappointing user experience; pretty surprising for a site devoted to video. “Burt Reynolds” is clearly spoken during the clip I was looking for, yet he wasn’t one of the main subjects of the video so “Burt Reynolds” wasn’t tagged. It showed just how lacking titles and tags often are for video.
I started writing this post about a week ago then put it aside. Since then, Hulu launched some new features for their search experience, largely focused on filters. Now, when “jeopardy” is entered as a search term within the SNL page, zero results are displayed. As in, no clips are found; go figure. My point here is not to bash Hulu at all. Hulu is one of the best video sites on the web. The problem I highlight here is apparent all over the internet; Hulu certainly is not alone. ESPN doesn’t offer video-only search. Their search combines all content into one interface, forcing a user to apply the video filter after starting the search process.
Video search is an interesting beast because a user often knows how to find the source pretty quickly. The true search comes in navigating through a library. That experience can be painful at times. Yet it seems as though there is far more hype around video SEO than video library search and navigation. Video SEO is the process of optimizing a video to be found by search engines – here are a bunch of tips and tools. Search and navigation within a library is all about finding the video, the segment, the true video content that you’re looking for within a finite set of media content. The experience is meant to be both efficient and exhaustive. In many case, we are constrained by a web administrator’s tagging diligence. In other words, a library is searchable when someone spends the time to manually tag each file. This essentially involves guessing what people might search for. It’s an inexact science that offers no other use beyond keyword search.
The power of time-synchronized transcription goes far beyond closed captioning. We’ve started developing tools for a user friendly experience that includes keyword search and tagging, the ability to visualize the occurrences of your desired search term across an entire library, and finally the ability to jump from one segment to another in the media library. The beta version of our search interface is in development now, but you can get a sense for what I’m talking about by viewing our alpha search browser here.
Content producers should consider a process optimized for the navigation of their specific library for the benefit of their own users. With all the video being produced both in the corporate environment and in mainstream media, offering a user-friendly search is absolutely critical. It will save time, reduce frustration, increase user retention, and increase viewership.
