Frequently Asked Questions about Dubbing
Kapwing, an integrated video and audio editing platform, offers a comprehensive dubbing solution that simplifies the process for creators and businesses alike. The tool harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to deliver automatic transcription, translation, lip sync, and voice generation.
Transcription and Translation
The dubbing process begins with Kapwing's automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology, which transcribes the original speech in the uploaded video, generating captions and a text transcript of the audio. This transcript can then be machine-translated into multiple target languages using partnerships with various translation vendors. Users can also add or upload custom translation glossaries and rules for better accuracy and consistency.
Voice Generation and Cloning
Kapwing generates synthetic voices in over 40 languages for dubbing. It supports voice cloning that mimics the original speaker’s voice tone, although expressive emotive variation is limited, with the same voice clone used throughout the video with only punctuation-based inflection adjustments.
Lip Sync
To ensure a natural look, Kapwing applies AI-based lip syncing to align the generated synthetic voice to the speaker's lip movements in the video. This preserves realism and makes the dubbing appear seamless.
Key Features
In addition to these core features, Kapwing offers several other noteworthy functions. These include the preservation of background sound, advanced timing and speed adjustments to match the original video timing, support for multiple speakers, the ability to translate embedded text in videos, and import from YouTube/Google Drive. Real-time collaboration is also supported.
Limitations
While Kapwing's dubbing tool is robust, it does have some limitations. The lack of emotive voice control in the text-to-speech (TTS) feature is one such limitation, as is the absence of a bulk import/export of multiple videos at once and the lack of a programmatic dubbing API.
Using Kapwing for Dubbing
To get started with video dubbing on Kapwing, users need to create an account and upload a short video (less than 8 minutes long). All paid plans on Kapwing are billed per-seat, meaning each editor will need a license to access the platform.
Once a dub is generated, any changes made to the transcription or the original language will automatically update the translation, using translation minutes based on the duration of the edited section. Users can choose to keep or delete the background audio from the project.
In summary, Kapwing provides an end-to-end AI-assisted dubbing workflow starting with speech recognition, followed by translation, synthetic voice generation including voice cloning, and finishing with lip-synced audio-video alignment for realistic dubbing output. The tool is used by various entities including communications and marketing teams at multinational companies, universities, churches, and government agencies. For more information about the latest Kapwing features, users can refer to the Release Notes.
Data-and-cloud-computing technology is utilized by Kapwing's dubbing solution to deliver automatic transcription, translation, and lip sync, with synthetic voice generation in over 40 languages and lip syncing to preserve a natural look for seamless dubbing.
Users can also leverage technology to create custom translation glossaries and rules, add background sound, and make advanced timing and speed adjustments, with real-time collaboration supported in this cloud-based platform.
