The reason why some foreign services eventually decided not to enter the Czech market in the past was not only the possible possession of export rights by another company, but also the difficulty of language localization. But this now seems easier than ever.
To make it easier to establish oneself in a given market, AI, artificial intelligence, should make it easier. However, the current design and outputs often look 'artificial' and unnatural. A synthetic voice may have seamless English, but it gives the viewer the impression of fatigue - machine reading without any emotion. This can create a faux pas similar to the one that occurred a few years ago when a woman with a strong Eastern accent read a Czech commentary on Travelxp.
Sweet.tv dubbed 12 channels with AI
Ukrainian streaming service Sweet.tv, which provides access to more than 155 TV channels and over a thousand movies, is using artificial intelligence technology to dub international TV channels into Czech. The company recently launched dabbing 12 TV channels in this way. By using AI, the operator, as it claims, confirms its position as a technologically advanced streaming service. Sweet.tv expects to continue expanding its localised content using AI.
"Our goal is to provide users with the latest technology. The use of artificial intelligence for localisation helps us create quality content faster and more efficiently, which is an important step in the development of the service not only in the Czech Republic, but also internationally," Katarína Dörnerová, regional director of the online platform Sweet.tv, told MediaGuru.cz. According to Dörnerová, representatives of the service are now exploring other possibilities of implementing AI, for example for creating personalised recommendations.
Localizes and TV Fish, a platform for fishermen
Artificial intelligence also plays a key role in localising content on TV Fish, the only fishing streaming platform in the Czech Republic and Slovakia focused on carp fishing, which is gradually expanding to include other fishing techniques from 2025. Thanks to AI, it can quickly create localised subtitles as well as complete Czech and Slovak voiceovers, greatly speeding up the translation process. Viewers who want to watch movies on TV (via the Android TV app or streaming via Apple TV or Chromecast), for example, can appreciate the ability to listen to fishing stories in English without having to watch subtitles. In addition, languages like Dutch are difficult to understand for most audiences, so AI translations open the way to premium content that would otherwise remain out of their reach.
The service gives viewers a choice between original subtitled text (which is still the preference of many users) and a fully localised voiceover created by AI. "While AI voiceover cannot always capture the emotion of the original one hundred percent, careful hand-tuning ensures that the content retains its authenticity and engagingness," argues Filip Schleif, director of creative strategy and founder of digital agency Gameplan, in favour of deploying AI. Schleif identifies this as particularly crucial for documentaries and adventure films, where atmosphere plays a crucial role. The price level of TV Fish subscriptions is more or less at the level of other video libraries available on our market - monthly access costs 269 crowns.
Can AI fully replace dubbers?
Artificial intelligence is beginning to play a significant role in dabbing for some market entrants, offering cost-effective and time-saving solutions. AI dubbing uses text-to-speech technology, referred to by the acronym TTS, to generate natural-sounding voices on a large scale. This solution is scalable and allows content to be dubbed into multiple languages, which is advantageous for projects where speed and budget are key. AI dubbing is also quite logically faster than traditional methods, as it can generate dubbed audio in a fraction of the time required for human dubbers. The Last year's IBC also brought an interesting discussion on AI in the dubbing environment.
But AI dubbing still cannot fully replace the emotional depth and cultural authenticity provided by traditional flesh-and-blood dubbers. So one way forward is likely to be a hybrid approach that combines the efficiency of AI with human talent for projects where emotional and cultural nuances are most important. Companies such as Papercup, for example, use AI to dub videos into different languages, allowing content to be quickly localised without going over budget. AI voiceover functionality is already offered by some of today's editing programs, although they may not yet have English. Although AI brings innovation, it is debatable whether it can fully replace traditional dubbing methods.
Source: mediaguru.cz
