The start-up PHONT shows that subtitles can be more than just static text. With their product PHONT Studio, they want to bring subtitles to life - and always in the context of the video content.
It all began in the lecture hall: Frederik Merkel, now Creative Lead of the team, noticed in a seminar with fellow international students how different dialects, accents and emotions color language. As someone who likes to watch films in the original with subtitles, he wondered whether and how these nuances could be visualized. Co-founder Paul Leo Langendörfer explains: "In his master's thesis, he developed ten innovative fonts that visually express different language styles and emotions - that was the first step towards PHONT." After graduating, Frederik wanted to turn the idea into a real product. Together with childhood friend and economist Paul-Leo Langendörfer, he founded PHONT and Marcello Eiermann soon joined the founding team as Technical Lead.
The three describe the idea behind PHONT as creative captioning (ACC) - i.e. "automated creative captions". It's not just about converting spoken words into text, but also making emotions and all audible information visually tangible. "Our AI automatically recognizes important background noises, who is speaking and what mood they are speaking in," says Paul-Leo Langendörfer. PHONT transforms all this information into vivid subtitles: Words can thus appear louder when someone is shouting, vibrate gently when someone is excited or be displayed small and delicate when someone is whispering.
Here you can find more information about the start-up incubator Media Lift.
To the program
PHONT is developing an AI-supported solution to visually adapt subtitles to content and emotions. The first product, PHONT-Studio, helps content creators to automatically create suitable subtitles and thus save an enormous amount of time.
With the PHONT-Studio product, the team wants to attract creators and video producers in particular. The idea: After uploading the video material, an AI automatically takes care of speaker recognition, transcription and the emotional design of the subtitles. Users can then make any final adjustments themselves and export the video with the new subtitles.
But the start-up is already thinking ahead: "Our goal is a universal subtitle engine that we want to integrate directly into large streaming platforms and media companies as an API. This would allow viewers to experience an additional, emotional layer to films and series in the future - at the touch of a button and on any platform," explains Paul-Leo Langendörfer.
For many providers, accessibility is an increasingly important issue, not only socially but also legally. PHONT wants to help make videos more inclusive in the future. "We combine entertainment with inclusion and ensure that subtitles are no longer just text, but an integral and emotional part of every media experience - a clear added value for all viewers," say the founders.
The team is currently working intensively on the launch of the first PHONT Studio product. At the same time, pilot projects with streaming platforms and media companies are being implemented - on the one hand to test the technology under real conditions - and on the other to make the product even better. When asked what the future holds for PHONT, Paul-Leo Langendörfer has a clear vision: "PHONT should become the new standard for subtitles. We want no one to have to resort to boring lines of text in the future, but instead be able to enjoy an intense, emotional media experience."
