Ghent University adopts SubtitleNEXT to equip students for the future
For immediate release – 19 May 2022, Ghent, Belgium – Europe’s prestigious Belgian Ghent University has invested in the SubtitleNEXT platform for the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication to further empower students.
After carefully reviewing a number of subtitling software systems, including free cloud-based programmes, the university’s Language and Translation Technology team chose SubtitleNEXT as system of choice to replace their previous subtitling tool.
Ghent University is a major public research institution, currently ranked within the top one hundred World University Rankings. With a total of 36,000 students and 9,000 staff, the University of Ghent has over eleven faculties offering more than two hundred courses that conduct in-depth research within a wide range of scientific disciplines, while its research investment averages around £180 million annually.
Within the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Multilingual Communication, students are being trained as language and language technology specialists, which offers them career perspectives in the translation and interpreting industry, including marketing and communications, education, natural language processing (NLP), and so forth.
For many years, subtitling has been part of the curriculum at Bachelor, Master, and Postgraduate level, and constitutes an important internship program thanks to collaborations with The International Film Fest Gent.
Ghent University’s Language Technology Lecturer Cynthia Van Hee says, “SubtitleNEXT stood out from the other systems due to many factors such as its intuitive interface and the large number of functionalities it offers. The versatile licensing schemes, including PBT EU’s dedicated technical support and maintenance options also appealed to us, as they give us flexibility to request specific functionalities for our purposes.”
Expanding on the key elements that attracted the department to invest in SubtitleNEXT, Cynthia outlines further details, “With teaching purposes in mind, our decision was mainly based on the technical advantages that SubtitleNEXT offers, outlined in my summary as follows:
Firstly, SubtitleNEXT’s intuitive interface works for us. Basic functionalities for loading a video, such as, spotting, adding, removing, and editing subtitles are all straightforward in the system. This is a major requirement for us, given that teachers and students with different backgrounds would be working with SubtitleNEXT.
Secondly, we were very impressed with the multitude of functionalities SubtitleNEXT has to offer and that they are also relevant to a range of other courses in our department. SubtitleNEXT provides invaluable respeaking and live subtitling options for candidates in our Interpreting Master’s programme too, including automatic translation plugin possibilities for the courses on Translation, displaying different interface layouts that allow easy comparison of subtitle files and so on.
Thirdly, given our yearly collaborations with different film festivals, SubtitleNEXT also delivers in this important area for us, with the types of video formats the system supports and the number of export possibilities.
Finally, the SubtitleNEXT floating licensing option that PBT EU offers is a considerable advantage when working with many groups of students.”
In addition, Cynthia reveals a few of her favourite features in SubtitleNEXT, “We really like the logical and clear layout design with limitless options for subtitle layout and editing. The various interface layouts, such as the side-by-side view for correcting purposes are useful, as well as the support for different video and export formats. It’s also great that we have the opportunity in SubtitleNEXT to create different subtitling profiles, each with their own set of properties.”
Looking ahead to what’s next, she adds, “We are also eager to learn more about the live subtitling option in the future. We are truly satisfied with SubtitleNEXT as our new subtitling software, and so are our students. The software appears to be very intuitive to them and provides all necessary options to allow them to successfully embark on their subtitling adventure.
We are also really happy with and grateful for the customer support we received so far. Switching software always implies many changes and a steep learning curve, but we can always address our concerns and questions, which are responded quickly and efficiently.”
CEO and Managing Partner of PBT EU, Ivanka Vassileva concludes, “We are delighted to welcome Ghent University to the growing community of SubtitleNEXT professionals. We feel immensely proud that the university’s dynamic Language and Translation Technology team invested in SubtitleNEXT for its various language and translation programmes, arming a future generation with key skills within a fast-paced global market. As a team that places our customers as first priority, we deeply value the relationship we have with the university, and we very much look forward to working with Cynthia and her outstanding team as they continue to transfer excellent subtitling skills to the next generation in an evolving digital world.”
The SubtitleNEXT platform is used for both offline and real-time captioning for all kinds of media formats. Some of the many organisations, including universities that have already adopted SubtitleNEXT include EMG, Digitalmeister GmbH, Leinhäuser Language Services GmbH, Polsat, Kino Polska, University of Rome Tor Vergata, the University of Warsaw, European School of Translation, Max Live Media Access, Biovisjon, IT Pros Subtitles, Doli Media Studio, Cube Cinema Technologies, Tring TV, Bulgarian National Television, Canal Plus Myanmar, AMC, HD Media, Hellenic American College of Greece, European School of Translation, the Complutense University of Madrid, and many others.
Find out more about SubtitleNEXT at www.SubtitleNEXT.com
For more about Ghent University’s Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, visit https://www.ugent.be/lw/vtc/nl. Further information about the Department’s Translation and Language Technology research can be found here https://lt3.ugent.be/
Media Information
About PBT EU
PBT EU develops and provides performance-leading solutions and customisable engineering system integration to empower content providers, broadcast, production, and post-production professionals to operate efficiently at the forefront of an ever-evolving digital environment. PBT EU’s primary focus is flexibility, futureproof customer-driven product innovation, fast deployment, teamwork, perseverance, openness, speed, high quality work, as well as dedicated support of its products, solutions and services, which include – PlayBox Technology Neo product suite, EXEcutor™ broadcast servers and software applications, advanced captioning and subtitling software platform SubtitleNEXT, as well as Profuz Digital’s powerful business process and information management system LAPIS designed to efficiently centralise processes and data all under one roof. PBT EU collaborates with worldwide renowned technology partners across distribution and system integration projects. Headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, with a global outreach including centres outside the country where sales, support, manufacturing, and R&D operations take place. www.pbteu.com
About SubtitleNEXT
SubtitleNEXT is a user-friendly, innovative, customisable, intuitive, and affordable timed-text software platform. Already adopted across various multimedia industries, it is designed for personal and professional use. It easily adapts to any settings, resolutions, and formats such as AR, MR, VR, 8K, 4K, 2K, HD, SD, 3D, UHD across online video, TV, film, theatre, concerts, festivals, conferences, and events. It can be applied throughout the entire video production process from concept to distribution. SubtitleNEXT already has a proven track record of success and continued to support customers throughout the entire pandemic, owing to its flexibility and remote capabilities. Visit www.SubtitleNEXT.com
About Ghent University
To find out more, visit the Language and Translation Department website (in Dutch): https://www.ugent.be/lw/vtc/nl
The website of the research group Language and Translation Technology: https://lt3.ugent.be/
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