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Trint is a media tech software company, headquartered in London and founded in December 2014 by Jeff Kofman and Mark Boas. It combines

machine learning with a cloud-based editing platform to transcribe audio or video to text.

In the spring of 2016 Trint won a grant from the Google Digital News Initiative. In June 2016 it won Startup of the Year from the Global Editors’ Network. It is also supported by the Knight Foundation’s Enterprise Fund. Trint went live in open beta in 2016.

Company history
Jeff Kofman is CEO and Co-Founder of Trint. He  s an Emmy-winning veteran network television news and war correspondent with more than three decades of experience reporting from around the world. He has worked for ABC News (London Correspondent; Correspondent for Florida, the Caribbean and Latin America); CBS News (New York Correspondent); and CBC News (National Correspondent, anchor, radio host.) He has covered many of the biggest stories of our time including the Iraq War, the Arab Spring, Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf Oil Spill and the Chile Mine Rescue.

Mark Boas is CTO and Co-Founder of Trint. He is a Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Fellow, the co-founder of Happyworm, and co-creator of hyperaud.io and jPlayer, a widely-used open source audio and video framework. He is an experienced developer, specialising in web media and speech-to-text. He pioneered the use of Interactive Transcripts with Mozilla, WNYC and Al Jazeera English and introduced the concept of transcript remixing with his work on the Hyperaudio platform.

In November, 2013 Kofman met Boas at the Mozfest conference in London while Kofman was researching a university journalism program he was developing. Mark was presenting Hyperaudio and the innovative technology that synced text to an audio/video player with Hyperaud.io (and later Trint) technical lead Laurian Gridinoc. In December, 2014 Kofman, Boas, Mark Panghiston (also a Hyperaud.io developer) and Laurian gathered in an AirBnB in Florence, Italy to work on the project and plan the execution of what later became Trint.

Platform history
Hyperaudio was the non-profit open source precursor to Trint, however learning from experiences with developing Hyperaudio (and later PalestineRemix.com) it was decided to write Trint from scratch using new technology.

The first prototype of the Trint platform was finished at the end of February 2015 and immediately went into a UX testing lab. After the first series of tests, it was determined that the interface wasn’t intuitive enough, as it involved an edit mode which switched from playing media files to text editing. Users found it bothersome and counter intuitive.

The second version - the Alpha - was launched in June 2015. This version had a user interface similar to a standard text editor interface, replicating the user experience from editors such as Microsoft Word. However, this version caused frequent crashing and freezing on different browsers and it was clear that the product still wasn’t ready.

During the summer of 2015 the development team which now included Piotr Fedorczyk (previously of Hyperaudio and Palestine Remix) focused on tackling the performance challenges and by November of that same year the first Beta version was complete. After testing over the Christmas period, it was released for open access in February, 2016 without a payment system installed.

CEO Jeff Kofman had at that point set an objective of acquiring 1000 non-paying users over 3 months, however word of Trint’s invention spread quickly through social networks and the platform acquired more a thousand users in just 3 hours. As there was no support structure and the database wasn’t ready for scaling, Trint closed for 36 hours, reopening in closed beta only for available to users who had already registered.

The installation of a payment system (using Stripe third-party software) was fast-tracked and a waiting list system was implemented. The payment system was completed by April 2016, tested and evolved during the subsequent months, while a support desk (using Zendesk third-party software) was created and backend engineering undertaken to optimise for growth.

Trint officially opened to the world on September 5th, 2016. The company’s sales figures are not public. In its first months the company signed accounts with ESPN, Vice News, ABC News, CNBC, Fast Company.

Transcription
Users upload audio or video files (.MP3, .MP4, .WAV, .MOV) to Trint’s browser based platform (optimised for Chrome, Firefox and Safari). The company recommends files of no more than 60 minutes in length and 1GB in size, although it can handle somewhat larger and longer files. The company’s SLA guarantees delivery of transcripts in an hour or twice the length of the original file, but in reality most transcripts are returned in far less time (usually about half the time of the original recording.) Poor audio (background noise, distant microphones or heavy foreign accents) can severely degrade Trint’s transcription accuracy. With good audio users report returns of 95% accuracy or higher.

Trint Editor
Trint’s core innovation is the Trint Editor which allows users to search, verify and edit the machine-generated transcript within the platform. The text is stitched or glued to the original audio making it simple to find and change the content.

Instant Timing
For broadcasters and podcasters Trint has invented a simple timing tool that allows users to instantly time their selections, giving both start time and total time of selected audio/text.

Export formats
The platform allows to export the generated transcripts in a number of formats:
 * Microsoft Word document


 * SubRip format (SRT)


 * VTT

Languages
Trint currently has three language models for English transcription:
 * North American English


 * British English

As well, Trint transcribes in the following European languages: Users must select the accent or language model on upload to obtain optimal results. The company plans to add additional accents and languages in 2017.
 * Australian English
 * French
 * German
 * Spanish

"Trint”
“Trint” is a word invented by Jeff Kofman. It is a neologism for the words “transcription” and “interview”. The company uses the word as both a verb (“Let’s Trint it”) and a noun (“I’ll check the Trint”.) When Jeff is asked by investors and others where he sees the company in four or five years he often responds “in the dictionary”.

The word “Trint” is a registered trademark owned by Trint Ltd.

Reception
Reception from customers has been enthusiastic, as the company continues evolving its platform and the interface to match the needs of its user base. The innovative solution has been the subject of blog posts and articles, including a feature in Fast Company. The response to the easy-to-use interactive editor has been positive, with most reviewers seeing the value in it and even calling it a possible game-changer for newsrooms.

Trint’s biggest challenge is low-quality audio uploads from users. Because Trint uses machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to transcribe, it requires reasonably clean audio to return accurate transcription. Some users do not understand this and are disappointed when their poor quality audio recordings are not returned with accurate transcription. The company is building a tool to help users verify their audio quality before paying for its services.