NAB BOOTH SL7610 - EEG has announced the launch of Lexi, a new cloud-hosted service that connects existing EEG closed caption workflows with the latest in Automatic Speech Recognition technology. Now supporting on-demand ASR closed caption delivery through EEG products for both live and offline material, Lexi makes accessibility possible for media segments that may currently lack any form of captioning coverage.
Lexi is capable of delivering over 90% accuracy in English and Spanish for many types of media. While professional human captioners can achieve higher accuracy rates of 98% or more, Lexi is optimal for improving compliance and accessibility on currently uncovered live or near-live material. In a hybrid approach, caption data from Lexi can be automatically interspersed with existing captions from a teleprompter system and/or human captioner to ensure coverage of only the unscripted segments, such as weather reports, to meet FCC full coverage mandates.
Subscribers can further enhance their Lexi experience by uploading data from websites, articles, and other text sources to build a customized recognition model for their unique application. The included Lexi Reader monitors supplied URL’s and self-updates to absorb and intelligently leverage new data to match current on-air media transcriptions. Plus, since Lexi is hosted in the cloud, the system automatically learns new data for news and entertainment without requiring individual subscribers to schedule updates or maintenance.
For live workflows, Lexi can provide real-time transcriptions based on audio supplied from any iCap™ connected device. This model supports hardware HD-SDI closed caption encoders from EEG, Falcon™ streaming encoders, Alta™ transport stream software, third-party iCap integrations, and proxy devices linking other third-party hardware caption encoders to iCap. Subscribers on these platforms will have the option to access Lexi as much or as little as needed. Offerings will range from a “Solution Tier” for providing 24/7 live ASR captioning, to an “Emergency Tier”, providing only a small number of hours of service monthly as an always-ready live caption backup for emergencies.
For offline or non-live captioning, subscription access to Lexi is built directly into EEG’s Scribe Closed Caption Editor. Manual preparation time will be greatly reduced by using Lexi to automatically generate initial timed transcripts, or to align existing transcripts ready for QC and cleanup directly in the editor interface.
“Automatic closed captioning isn’t ready for every application yet, but there is a real need for covering material that is falling through the gaps in current workflows,” says Bill McLaughlin, VP of Product Development for EEG. “Lexi is a flexible and affordable solution that promotes a fully accessible media ecosystem for all content lengths, preparation times, and budgets.”