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AI

Amazon Tests AI Dubbing on Prime Video Movies, Series (aboutamazon.com) 40

Posted by msmash from the no-longer-lost-in-translation dept.
Amazon has launched a pilot program testing "AI-aided dubbing" for select content on Prime Video, offering translations between English and Latin American Spanish for 12 licensed movies and series including "El Cid: La Leyenda," "Mi Mama Lora" and "Long Lost." The company describes a hybrid approach where "localization professionals collaborate with AI," suggesting automated dubbing receives professional editing for accuracy. The initiative, the company said, aims to increase content accessibility as streaming services expand globally.

Amazon Tests AI Dubbing on Prime Video Movies, Series More | Reply

Amazon Tests AI Dubbing on Prime Video Movies, Series

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  • why pay professionals (Score:3)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @08:46PM (#65213807) Homepage Journal

    When you can run a shitty computer program that does an unsatisfactory job? It only costs thousands of GPUs and a few megawatthours.

    • Ay, ay, ay, mi madre! No hay signo de exclamación invertido!"

    • Not that anyone is doing a satisfactory job now. Too few voice actors, nobody bothers to match the source environment or sound levels... yuck.

      Now that I think about it, an AI might be able to match the sound so it isn't so obvious the lines aren't being spoken in a recording booth and not out in the open, in a big echoing room... That would be a good use.

      • AI can't does any of that though. And it can't match the stresses and cadence of a decently skilled human actor either.

        So you can either hire shitty voice actors or use a shitty piece of software. And get shitty results. For a film that isn't a piece of art but simply a vehicle to make money.

        Where AI shines in dubbing is that it is getting better at lip syncing. On the video side it is a huge time saver, but someone has to actually go through and review what it does and send the crappy attempts back. It tur

  • The thing that kills the presentation... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...of dubbed video is the mismatch in mouth movement. Use deepfake tech to fix that.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why can't you just be honest about your desire to turn every mouth into Henry Cavil's mustache?

    • Also, the mismatch in audio environment. Reverb, background sound, physical location relative to the mic... It bugs me more than the mismatch in mouth movement.

  • In other words, why hire more translators?

    • Translators need to accept the reality that their jobs are going away. If they all lived in a swing state they might be able to fuck with the rest of us like the coal miners did, but they don't.

    • Well, looking at a lot of subtitles these days, no real translators seem to be used anyway. Most is just a literal translation of the english subs, instead of a translation of what is meant on screen. Like the word 'right' is translated as a direction, even though in a lot of cases it is meant as 'ok'.

    • This is AI dubbing which may or may not include translation in particular if subtitles are already available for the required language the AI dubbing will probably use them. It is void actor jobs that are eliminated by this.

  • Text-to-speech is improving, but really... I guess they think if they do it enough people will just accept it. Weird AI dubbing with incongruous and inconsistent intonation, occasional bad pronunciation, but it costs almost nothing? Sure, why not.

    I know a guy who actually listens to entire computer-narrated books on Google Books, and no he's not blind. So I guess people can actually learn to listen to stuff like that...

    • So my guess is that they're having one or two people do the voice intonation and then letting the AI change out the voices so that they can have fewer actors and actresses. You can pretty easily find software now that can make your voice sound like anything or anyone.

    • Weird AI dubbing with incongruous and inconsistent intonation

      You ever heard that man play the accordion? He's got great intonation!

    • Text-to-speech is improving, but really... I guess they think if they do it enough people will just accept it. Weird AI dubbing with incongruous and inconsistent intonation, occasional bad pronunciation, but it costs almost nothing? Sure, why not.

      I know a guy who actually listens to entire computer-narrated books on Google Books, and no he's not blind. So I guess people can actually learn to listen to stuff like that...

      Right now it's pretty silly. There's a series of commercials that were obviously shot once and overdubbed with AI. The english version has some odd errors that are clearly based on the rules of grammar, but not the natural pronunciation rules. Things like pronouncing "detergent" with a hard 'g' sound and the like.

      I wonder if, in a few years time, that type of thing will become the new normal, as kids get raised on AI translated text, because they refuse to read themselves when the computer can do it for the

  • Then while the bots are busy doing the circle jerk,
    Us normal people might have time for some real work.

    Cuz the bills will never pay themselves.
    And groceries don't magically materialize on supermarket shelves.

  • Better than no cloud captioning or dubbing at all....mostly for those blancos ricos que no tienenen un corazon. Y que no hablan otro idiomas pero Ingles. Bastardos ricos.

  • "Luke, I am your pencil sharpener!"

  • Riiight (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Slashythenkilly ( 7027842 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @11:30PM (#65213977)
    The only way this is going to work is to have dedicated interpreters who understand and speak the language with all the idioms, customs, and meaning. AI is nowhere near that. I cant even get a decent movie summary yet.
  • Besides translation, does it also match the speaker's voice, emmotion, intonation, etc? If double checked by a professional translator, this might actually improve the quality of dubbing.

    • It probably does - the AI created song parodies certainly do. And yes, it can very well improve the quality of dubbing - currently most of it sucks in all regards except one, namely the clarity of speech.

  • Oh dear (Score:3)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Thursday March 06, 2025 @03:30AM (#65214167)

    Why? If Amazon is too lazy to hire people to dub a foreign show into English, then don't bother with an English soundtrack at all and use subtitles. Dubbing isn't great but it's usually competent with actors using the original performance (audio and visual), and the script, and the context to produce something that can be watched. Any AI is going to be dogshit by comparison.

    And on a more general point, don't these voiceover actors have unions? Maybe now would be a good time to make clear that this shit is not acceptable, before a "trial" becomes the norm.

  • WTF? (Score:2)

    by pjt33 ( 739471 )

    offering translations between English and Latin American Spanish for 12 licensed movies and series including "El Cid: La Leyenda,"

    El Cid: La Leyenda is a Spanish production, as in from Spain. It's not in English or Latin American Spanish, so what on Earth are they doing? Taking the output of human translators to pass through an AI translation, rather than doing AI translation from the original source? Or is it just that some editor at some point in the chain assumed that Spanish is only spoken in Latin Amer

    • It states "between English and Latin American Spanish" it does not state in which direction.
      For example if I stated that United Airlines operated flights between New York and London I think it would be safe to say that they operate in both directions.
      If they intended to convey a one way operation they could have written "from English to Spanish".

      The article itself does not mention "between" it states:
      "Starting today, AI-aided dubbing in English and Latin American Spanish will be available ini

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pjt33 ( 739471 )

        For example if I stated that United Airlines operated flights between New York and London I think it would be safe to say that they operate in both directions.

        Sure, but I'd be equally confused if one of those flights takes off from Johannesburg.

        The article itself does not mention "between"

        Ah, the /. editor took something which made sense and broke it. No further explanation required.

  • That's right, why pay the people doing work when you can also just get a shitty version by training some AI with the intelligence of a dog on their work and just use that to generate it.

    They take the hard work of the dubbers of the past, throw it through some algorithm, and use it to save a dime (actually they won't save a dime, they will just pay others more than they ever paid the dubbing staff to create this second rate nonsense)

    Not like the execs at Amazon speak more than one language and would know the

  • I've been hearing impaired since early adulthood. Good captions are great ... and rare. And always have been

    I'm tempted to say that AI captions can hardly be worse than most shows have anyway. But we'll see ...

    I will say (based on experience with them on YouTube, say) that they are usually better than no captions at all.

  • Even dubbing done by competent, creative and experienced professionals sucks. AI dubbing will just suck a lot more.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jsonn ( 792303 )
      A good dub can be just as great as the original work. But it requires effort, time and money. Amazon doesn't care about either of the three.
      • I guess it could be, but is it ever actually? Well, I suppose I have heard some pretty decent dubbing, but only when it was the same actors doing both languages.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Well, I suppose I have heard some pretty decent dubbing, but only when it was the same actors doing both languages.

          Which basically almost never happens. The one instance I know is Gert Fröbe in Goldfinger.

      • Aye, but it has to be planned from the beginning with a compatible script and then shot in a way that minimises shots of actors speaking.
    • I live in Central Europe and sometimes watch TV or a movie with Google Translate on my phone, just so I can a rough clue of what the heck is going on. Otherwise it feels like a silent movie.

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