Simultaneous Interpretation Without Initial Investment

​Simultaneous interpretation is the specific term for immediate response translation. For conferences and public speaking where the audience demography spans across multiple nationalities and native languages. Simultaneous interpretation is the most effective way to get the message across.

This service is not automated yet. You need a professional translator or translators in a separate room or soundproof booth with the helm of a synchronised personal audio system. Translators relay the information from the guest speaker in real-time. They provide a seamless experience for audience members of other origins and linguistic backgrounds. This technology requires a unique set of equipment, part of which comprises the special translation headset system.

Initial Investment Required for Audience

The Simultaneous Interpretation Process: Step by Step

There are three parts to the act of simultaneous interpretation.

Step 1: Floor Language is Spoken

The ‘floor language’, spoken by the guest speaker, conference lecturer or main presenter is transmitted wirelessly through the main microphone or ‘floor feed’ to the translation control room.

Step 2: Interpreters Listen

The control room is usually in a separate location in a soundproof booth or sometimes at the back of the auditorium. From here, the interpreter or interpretation team listens to the content live as it is broadcast.

Step 3: Translation and Delivery

The content is concurrently replicated and translated by the interpreter(s) and immediately spoken into a microphone in the interpretation booth. Translated language is delivered wirelessly to the corresponding audience members who wear the specified headset.

Difficulties

Available conference systems are very useful for the conference audience to listen to translations in the language they wish. But they bring a lot of operational and financial issues. The most important ones are as follows:

1. Initial investment cost
2. The headphones used by many people are not suitable for personal hygiene.
3. The headphones require a battery charge.
4. The batteries of the headphones become worn out in a short time.
5. Interpreters need to be present at the conference venue.
6. Interpreter scarcity when needed rare languages.
7. Travelling and accommodation costs of interpreters.
8. Participants should be at the conference venue in person.

What about the solution?

As with other similar areas, difficulties you met with conferencing systems can be easily solved with cloud computing infrastructure and mobile devices already in the audience. Once you have these two infrastructures, the only tool you need is Ant Media Server Enterprise Edition.

Mobile Phones Are Enough for Audience and Interpreters

How does this solution eliminate these challenges?

1. You don’t have to invest hundreds of special and expensive headphones. The audience already has their own headphones.

2. There is no hygiene problem, so everyone uses their own headset.

3. Obviously, no cables mean batteries. You need to make sure the batteries of your conference system will last through long meetings, and preferably even more than one. Now you don’t have to think about charging the headphones, but people are already doing this responsibility successfully.

4. I guess it doesn’t need to be said that the ageing of the batteries is no longer your problem.

5. When you digitize all input and output content, interpreters don’t need to be present at the conference venue. They can work from anywhere on the planet. ​You may also use your own interpreters, without having to transfer them to the event location.

6. All interpreters of the planet earth are at your service. They don’t need to be with you even in the same country. You can recruit certified interpreters by leading interpreting agencies from all over the world.

7. Remote interpreters mean no accommodation and no travelling costs for them. So, you can eliminate the travelling and accommodation costs of interpreters and the time and resources for the installation of booths.

8. It’s always more impressive to share the same atmosphere with people in the conference environment, but participants from around the world can watch your conference in real time with Ant Media Server.

Conclusion

Thanks for Ant Media Server’s ultra-low latency feature which provides real-time audio and video transmission between peers. So people can watch and listen to each other as if they were next to each other. With less than half a second, both translators and listeners can now be together in the same time frame.

As a result, ​Participants may use their smartphones, tablets and/or laptops via Wi-Fi or mobile data networks to listen to the human interpreters working in real time. ​Participants may also use traditional headsets with standard IR Receivers. Participants can follow the session remotely if they cannot attend the event in person. Simultaneous Interpreters also don’t need special microphones, so they have their mobile phones.