RocketBoom_April_26_2007

[♫ Rocketboom music ♫] Hello, and good Thursday, April 26, 2007. I'm Joanne, and this is Rocketboom. Okay. It's finally time to really show off dotSUB. We've mentioned this a lot, but now we're all ramped up and ready to tell you the whys, hows, and what fors and ask that you help jump in here and, literally, spread the word. [dotSUB] First of all, each day we upload our video into the system, and it quickly renders into a relatively good-looking flash file. Then we log in and add the English subtitles to create a closed-captioned version for the hearing impaired and to facilitate the ease of adding other languages. Then anyone can come along and improve the translation by simply hitting the Tweak link. Yes, just like Wikipedia, you can certainly hack it, too. Just make a change, and it dandily updates automatically. There's no need to wait for a video to re-render because it's all just metadata stored in a My SQL database and viewed by an overlay of the already rendered flash file. And then... Anyone can easily add another language by simply typing it right into the form. Let's hear from Michael Smolens, the founder of dotSUB. The dotSUB tool will enable human beings and corporations and organizations to use video as a communication tool to seamlessly and inexpensively communicate across cultures. And what we have done at dotSUB is realize that there's a global audience that is more and more connected. And so, all of this content that's created not only in English but in Chinese, in Albanian, in Swahili, has people around the world that are interested in seeing it and enjoying it. But traditional media and traditional methods and tools for subtitling are very expensive and time-consuming and costly. So we have attempted to create a browser-based tool that's as simple to use as the Google Search Bar, that anybody who is bilingual between any language pair, with very little training, can use the tool to translate home videos, to translate YouTube videos, to translate Rocketboom episodes, to translate college lectures, to translate anything that's available as long as the permission is gained from the rights holder. And it is transcoded into dotSUB and then re-embedded into any web site. In terms of closed-captioned content, it's illegal to not provide this option in the U.S. for the hearing impaired on TV. Think of how many people are missing out on the whole YouTube revolution. We strongly encourage anyone to jump in here and translate other material, not just Rocketboom. [dotSUB] Here's a wonderful story about Muhammad Yunus who leads a movement that's helped lift literally millions of people from around the world out of poverty. It's been translated, so far, into 74 languages! Currently, the system is free to just sign up and use. [Banker to the Poor - voice of Mr. Yunus:] We have demonstrated beyond anybody's doubt that it works and is sustainable, and it can work in all kinds of cultural and economic situations. In case you can't hear the enthusiasm in my voice, the opportunity to understand more and more about the cultures of the world and to help transcend economically imposed borders is truly awesome. From anywhere in the world, for everywhere, I'm Joanne, and this is Rocketboom. [Joanne:] It's as sweet as the spring smell of a bagel packed in a spindle for a picnic in a tank of snow melting across a rural sky of light and fancy. www.rocketboom.com