The world of news is a fast-moving business; especially online, news is only news if it’s breaking news. The team at swissinfo knows this only too well. which is why they’ve significantly simplified and accelerated their video clip translation process to deliver up-to-the-minute videos in a timely manner in up to 10 languages. The optimized workflow enables swissinfo to deliver multilingual video news coverage in record time!

What does swissinfo do?

swissinfo.ch is the international online service of the public-service Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG). A team of 60 editors is responsible for independent online news coverage. Coverage focuses on current affairs in areas such as politics, business, science, culture and society as a whole – with a global scope, but always with a connection to Switzerland itself.

Video content needs to be easy to understand, authentic and up to date, but also tailored to support sharing on social media. This doesn’t just apply to the content itself, which is prepared by the editors according to the subject matter at hand, and sometimes supplemented by additional background information. It is equally vital to ensure this content is available in languages that will reach swissinfo’s target audiences abroad, which is why the swissinfo team translates video reports into up to 10 languages. According to swissinfo, this allows them to reach almost 75% of the global internet community – underlining why multilingualism is such an important factor in the news sector.

How has video translation been accelerated?

When producing videos for social media, the swissinfo team often works with motion graphics and hard subtitles. In the past, this meant that the journalists had to manually copy out each text to be translated, before pasting the translated version back into the editing software. To eliminate this copy/paste process, TitleTool was integrated into the workflow. Now, any videos which require translation are uploaded to TitleTool. All stakeholders can work directly on the text to be translated via TitleTool’s web interface – with no more copying in and out. In addition, the translation process itself has been simplified using automated translation tools such as DeepL.

A little background: TitleTool was originally developed for the localization of product videos for agencies and businesses across a range of industries. The example of swissinfo shows how this tool has also started to capture the interest of news media players. MoovIT is constantly envolving TitleTool, and as it enters a new market segment, new features are being created and applications optimized. User roles – whether admin, editor, manager or translator – can be assigned and monitored in a clear and reliable manner, while playout is ensured in a wide variety of formats. Last but not least, TitleTool takes control of archiving functions, with all tasks clearly documented. At the same time, specialized services such as DeepL have been integrated into the tool.

What are the benefits for swissinfo?

In short: “Less copy/pasting, more content creation!” Thanks to TitleTool, swissinfo has been able to vastly reduce the time spent on each translation, and can now produce significantly more video content in the same amount of time. In other words, TitleTool has paved the way for multilingual video news coverage in record time!

“In addition, TitleTool is the only tool that offers a right-to-left solution for translations from motion graphics into Arabic,” notes Hubert Zumwald, Head of IT at swissinfo.ch.

Want to learn more?

Click here for an interview with swissinfo’s Head of IT, as he discusses his experiences with TitleTool: