During the Sept. 15 ITS: Automation event, held during IBC at the W Amsterdam, MESA turned the spotlight on the next phase of Fabric’s Cloud Localization Blueprint (CLB) that was featured as an accelerator at last year’s IBC.
Now, in collaboration with MESA and the Content Localisation Council, there are new participants with the same objective of creating stable workflows with cloud-based solution, it was pointed out during the ITS: Automation panel session “Cloud Localization Blueprint II (What’s Next?).”
The session’s panel provided insights into the collaborative efforts, technical innovations and industry collaborations that have driven the creation of the new specification.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, localization today is really sort of done by the studio placing some orders and then they pray,” according to Hollie Choi, managing director of EIDR.
The studios tend to have “very little visibility into” how the localization process is happening and the first phase of CLB1 was to create a “blueprint or a framework around” it, according to Choi.
Now, however, using an application programming interface (API)-driven system and Amazon Web Services (AWS) technology opens the process up to more people, she said.
And, as a result, she explained, “now the studio places these orders, sits back and can watch what’s going on and have full visibility” into the localization process, she said.
All this stands to speed up the process, she said, adding: “Where I think CLB2 comes in is how do we then bring in those participants, the others that weren’t included” before?
But she said: “I will tell you probably the biggest complaint I heard was how come you didn’t call me because I would have done this too. So we will. Absolutely.”
Choi added that the technology being used for CLB “is not new; it’s been out there forever. It just hasn’t really been used for this application.”
Mary Yurkovic, director of MESA’s Smart Content Council, went on to note that the Language Metadata Table Initiative working group falls under the Smart Content Council. And LMT is a big part of CLB2.
“LMT started with 128 languages that they have,” Yurkovic, said, noting that was back in 2018. Now, fast forward to 2023 and “we have almost 300 language codes today that can be used,” she said.
That was achieved while bypassing the standards that were out there, she said. What was important is that it was “being adopted…. It’s being adopted and actually being used. So, I think that’s a great success story,” she said, adding there are “a lot of good things to come.”
Also speaking during the session was Caroline Baines, senior director of MESA’s Content Localisation Council.
The inaugural ITS: Automation event was produced by MESA and sponsored by Amazon Studios Technology, Fabric, Eluvio, EIDR, and HAND (Human & Digital).
Fabric and MESA invite content creation supply chain stakeholders to participate in the next round of innovation for this important segment of the industry. Companies will be selected in early November and results of the overall project will be shared at MESA’s ITS: Localisation event in London on Feb. 29, 2024. To participate, click here.