We have big news! We are retiring our existing VideoTranslator SaaS (Software as a Service) application. In this blog post we talk about why the app is being retired, ongoing support provision during/after retirement and what will replace the current value proposition.

Are We Done?

Absolutely not. Our VideoTranslator app lived a good life, but this post is about celebrating our efforts, what we learned, and where we are going.

We started the company, QBL Media, all the way back in 2014. However, work only started in 2017. The app which would become the current VideoTranslator App was started in 2018.

By 2019, we soft-launched the app. Over the next 3 years, our VideoTranslator app got over 10,000 signed-up users, and hundreds of hours of video content transcribed, translated and dubbed - note, including both our efforts and clients who used the app.

Internally, we went from a single founder and outsourced developer in India to a 5 man team across Australia and India. We went from being a single room in a client’s office to having our own little 4 desk setup. And it’s likely we will be expanding over the next few months too.

So lots have happened. But the big news is… the next iteration of our retail offering is currently expected to go live in June 2022!

What Did We Get Right About Video Transcription, Video Translation and Video Dubbing?

We got a few big things right about version 1 of the VideoTranslator App. Specifically:

• There is significant demand at the content creator level for video transcription, translation and dubbing in a single platform.
• While LSPs tend to focus on big enterprise clients - who pay the bills so this makes sense - there is a substantial number of users at the bottom who have not been provided with a solid solution.
• Marketers like the idea of translating their content. Unfortunately, unless the client is Japanese, German or Korean (think big exporter-type companies), this is more of an aspiration versus a need.
• The core flow is much harder than anyone thinks, for a number of different reasons.

Practically, this means that while lots of people tried and made use of our product, the product itself was not solid enough to convert this to recurring revenue. As a practical matter, more people used the one-off payment model than the subscription payment model.

What Did We Get Wrong About AI Usage in Transcription, Translation And Dubbing?

Plenty. The core issue is that AI is not good enough to make this process as seamless as possible.

AI has a lot of promise, and we at VideoTranslator think there is a lot we can do with it. Unfortunately, the existing VideoTranslator app was essentially an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in many respects.

Structurally, there were a number of engineering decisions made which meant that upgrading the existing app is very hard.

Additionally, innovations where we can now give you ways to train your own AI mean that it was basically impossible to upgrade what we had, and a new app was required.

What Do I Need To Know About The Retirement?

Not a lot.

We are in the process of reaching out to all our subscribers to tell them about our current platform being retired. The process looks like this -

• March 2022 - Retirement announcement, outreach to the existing client base.
• April 2022 - Final outreach to legacy users, including grandfathering existing clients’ pricing model to the new app.
• May 2022 - Turn off existing application.

If you are an existing subscriber, or have files on our system, and have not yet been contacted by our support team, please reach out [hello@videotranslator.ai](mailto: hello@videotranslator.ai “hello@videotranslator.ai”).

What Do I Get In The New Version?

We will have a number of blog posts coming out as we get closer to the new app. The big stand-out feature is custom glossaries/libraries which can be set up to automatically learn on the fly.

Basically, you will be able to train your own AI.

If you are keen to understand/work with the new version early, please contact us at [hello@videotranslator.ai](mailto: hello@videotranslator.ai “hello@videotranslator.ai”).

Outro

While the existing app is still good in many respects, we are stopping support and will be taking it down over the next month with a hard shutdown in early May.

If you have specific requirements and need some of the more complex workflows, please contact us [hello@videotranslator.ai](mailto: hello@videotranslator.ai “hello@videotranslator.ai”) - and our support team will be able to assist you.

We’d also like to thank all the people who tried the app, used the app, paid used the app and generally all the feedback and well-wishers who we had the privilege to work with - you were all fantastic and we have received so much love and good wishes… its a bit overwhelming, to be honest!

Thank you so much for your support again, and here are some images we really liked!

Thank You All So Much!