Video production can be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. Investing in the right studio equipment and hiring the right talent both on and off-camera can take a lot of valuable resources.
However, advances in text-to-speech algorithms and AI-generated videos have started to provide an alternative solution.
Why hire a professional voice actor if you could just use a program that converts text into high-quality natural speech?
What if you had the opportunity to use life-like avatars to present your content?
In this article, we will look into the Synthesia platform and its promise to make professional video production accessible to anyone.
What is Synthesia?
Synthesia is an AI video generation platform that allows users to create engaging videos with AI avatars.
Founded in 2017 by a team of AI researchers and entrepreneurs, Synthesia’s mission is to empower everyone to make video content. Their team hopes to reach people who do not have access to professional microphones or cameras.
Synthesia uses AI software to simulate real videos and real actors. The platform eliminates the need for film crews, studios, and actors. With Synthesia, creating video content is now as simple as writing an email.
The platform supports over 120+ languages, which allows global teams to rapidly develop video content in dozens of languages without having to spend additional time and resources.
You can try their free demo to see how easy it is to create professional videos from the text. The user simply needs to select a video template to use and provide a video script in any supported language.
After a few minutes, the video output will be sent to the user’s provided business email.
Use Cases
Synthesia’s capabilities are best used for business-related video content. For example, organizations can use Synthesia to produce training videos for their member’s learning and development.
Video content is known to increase employee engagement compared to written guides. Additionally, Synthesia’s AI avatars and text-to-speech algorithms make it much cheaper to produce.
Other fitting use cases for Synthesia include:
- How-to videos
- Customer Onboarding
- Product Marketing
- Sales Training
- Compliance Training
Key Features
AI Avatars
Synthesia gives users access to over 85 AI avatars.
Each avatar is modeled after a real-life actor who gave Synthesia permission to use their likeness for business-related videos. Synthesia provides a range of avatars spanning multiple age ranges and ethnicities.
After users choose a virtual avatar, Synthesia uses neural networks to produce high-fidelity video with a photorealistic look and movements.
Support for over 120+ languages
After deciding on an avatar, users can also choose from a wide selection of AI voices. Synthesia supports over 120 different languages with both male and female voices.
These AI voices allow you to quickly generate different versions of your video content that fit your audience’s first language.
Professional Video Templates
Another impressive feature is Synthesia’s vast collection of video templates. Users can choose a template that best suits their use case. Synthesia even provides the option to add your own background, image, video, and audio assets into these templates.
For example, you can choose their professional corporate video template and replace the default background with your own corporate branding.
Integrated Screen Recorder
Many use cases for video production involve recording one’s screen. For example, when creating tutorials on how to use a particular software, you will typically need actual footage of someone trying out the tool.
While there are many dedicated software solutions for recording your screen, Synthesia makes it part of your workflow.
Synthesia makes it easy for users to create screen captures with their integrated screen recorder that is accessible from their video editor.
Pricing
Synthesia’s Personal Plan costs $30 per month. Users who subscribe to this plan automatically get 10 video credits to use. A single credit is equal to about 1 minute of the video, so users can already generate up to 10 minutes of video.
Larger organizations can also subscribe to a corporate plan. The plan comes with all Personal plan features and gives users access to priority support and premium built-in avatars. Synthesia indicates on its Pricing page that the actual price of the plan will depend on your organization’s needs.
Synthesia also provides an option for users to create their own custom avatars. For example, you may want to create an avatar of a specific member of your organization. You will just need to submit a custom video to Synthesia and they will create a custom avatar within 10 days.
While it is straightforward to film a custom video, the ability to use custom avatars does not cheap. Synthesia currently charges at least $1000 for the use of custom avatars.
Conclusion
At the current pace of innovation, AI technologies seem to be improving every few weeks. Following this wave of innovation is a new suite of AI-powered tools that hope to empower users who may not have the necessary time or resources.
Synthesia may not be the first tool of its kind, but it is certainly one of the most convenient in the market. The inclusion of a built-in editor and support for hundreds of languages make the platform both easy to use and capable of any use case.
What do you think about Synthesia’s video production capabilities?
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