Benzinga | Oct 7, 2021 02:02PM EDT

Cinedigm Says To Utilize State-of-the-Art Technology To Localize The Bob Ross Channel

Cinedigm (NASDAQ:CIDM),the leading independent streaming company super-serving enthusiast fan bases, announced today its partnership with artificial intelligence-based startup Papercup to adapt the iconic Bob Ross series The Joy of Painting for millions of additional viewers worldwide. Cinedigm and Papercup have partnered to dub, for the first time, the entire catalog of Bob Ross's iconic painting show into Latin American Spanish and other key languages. The intent is to roll out in the US & Latin America followed by other international territories. The much-loved series runs on public television stations, and in its 31 seasons, The Joy of Painting won three Emmy awards.

Cinedigm, the exclusive distributor of The Bob Ross Channel across OTT, was seeking hyper-accurate matching in order to catch all of Ross's sweet phrases and sounds that traditional translators often miss, in addition to a scalable solution to efficiently localize hundreds of hours of content into various languages. Cinedigm's ultimate goal is to expand distribution of Bob Ross's television series to a global audience. AI voice startup Papercup was able to provide a scalable service to automate time-consuming parts of the dubbing process through the use of machine translation and synthetic speech that has been extensively trained via machine-learning. This process outputs a fully localized audio language track that utilizes a synthetic voice imperceptible from a human voice. The Company plans to dub all 31 seasons of The Joy of Painting content into Latin American Spanish for distribution across the burgeoning Spanish-language streaming market.

View sample here: https://vimeo.com/616209511/af57b41cf5

"The Bob Ross Channel is one of our most successful channels due to its broad appeal and the magic that Bob Ross' talent and innovation brought to the screen. In partnering with Papercup, we are harnessing an innovative technology partner to extend the reach of The Joy of Painting by utilizing cutting-edge technology to seamlessly dub his voice using artificial intelligence and synthetic speech. As streaming services continue to expand worldwide, this will allow us to reach a previously untapped global audience," said Tony Huidor, Chief Technology & Product Officer at Cinedigm. "This is a pivotal time for the entertainment industry as demand for streaming content adapted for local markets continues to grow. We seek to make the most of our channel portfolio by adapting our content for international markets. Partnering with Papercup will allow us to achieve this goal and scale our business by utilizing their AI technology."

"A project like this is exactly why we built our technology - unlocking hundreds of hours of quality content stuck in a single language with our speech translation system," said Jesse Shemen, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Papercup. "It's validating to see our technology work at such a large scale across multiple languages and enable the introduction of strong branded content to a new global audience."

An innovator in the digital transformation of the entertainment industry for more than two decades, Cinedigm's core mission is to entertain the world by building the world's best portfolio of enthusiast channels and services for the streaming generation. Through a diverse mix of premium SVOD services and dedicated AVOD and FAST channels, Cinedigm's streaming portfolio reaches indie film (Fandor), horror (Screambox & Bloody Disgusting) and family entertainment (Dove Channel), as well as dedicated channels for iconic entertainers, led by Bob Ross (The Bob Ross Channel) and soon Elvis Presley (The Elvis Presley Channel). Cinedigm's ultimate goal is to build destinations that immerse viewers in content they love while staying at the forefront of technology as the streaming industry continues to evolve.