What you need to know
- Microsoft is working on real-time translation of videos on the web, including YouTube videos.
- This feature is in initial testing on the Canary Channel and is not stable at this time.
- To use real-time translation within Edge, you must download and install a language pack once. After that, it will work without any additional downloads.
Microsoft Edge will soon support a new real-time translation feature that takes audio from any video on the web and translates it into supported languages. This feature is currently being tested among Canary Channel Insiders, so there are still bugs to iron out. But assuming all goes as planned, people will soon be able to translate videos on the web into their language of choice.
This feature was discovered by Leo Varela, who shared some examples of the tool in action. Varela emphasized that there are bugs in the current feature, but that's to be expected from the Canary Channel feature.
After many attempts and many crashes, I was finally able to create a short recording of Edge's video translation feature. You can hear the original audio in the first video and his AI-powered translation in Edge: https://t.co/FIcnSbSZjT pic.twitter.com/ozilW5YMOcMay 6, 2024
Currently, this feature supports translation from English, Spanish, or Korean to English, German, Spanish, Hindi, Italian, or Russian.
Real-time translation is a very useful tool to break down communication barriers. Many services support translation in some way, such as Microsoft Teams adding translated captions. But Edge's new features are especially useful because they seem to work across a variety of platforms. The example Varela shared is from YouTube, but the feature doesn't appear to be exclusive to that platform.
Edge's video translation feature is still in early testing stages, so it's far from a smooth experience. Varela said it took multiple tries to get one video to work. Even in the examples where the feature works, the translation is far from smooth. But that's what testing is for. Perhaps Microsoft will polish the video translation experience before making it publicly available.
failed french
I confess that I don't speak other languages. I studied French from kindergarten until I was a teenager, but I never understood it. I understood it well when I was studying American Sign Language in college, but then I moved to England, where British Sign Language is used. Also, I live my life split between my girlfriend's two countries (US and UK), which mainly speak English. As a result, the content I see online and the people I talk to primarily speak English. Real-time translation within Edge opens the door to lots of new videos, videos that are new to me.
This was a welcome addition as real-time translation to text became more common on the web, but I prefer listening to some type of content, such as podcasts or long interviews. Listen to interviews, news articles, and podcasts featuring people speaking other languages with real-time translation to audio.
So all my French teachers deserve an apology from me, but at least I can listen to French podcasts now. Thank you AI.
