"Murderesses": MagentaTV removes series with AI synchronization

Deutsche Telekom has removed a Polish series with AI-generated dubbing from its MagentaTV offering. This was reported by the media magazine DWDL. It concerns the Polish Viaplay production "Murderesses", which uses AI voices for the dubbing in the German version.

In this form, "Murderesses" appeared both on MagentaTV and on the Viaplay channel of Amazon's streaming service Prime Video. According to DWDL, viewers of the series noticed the poor and monotonous dubbing of the police series. In the credits, the Israeli AI company Deepdub is named as the company responsible for the dubbing.

When DWDL inquired with Deutsche Telekom, it removed the series from its service – on Monday "for the purpose of quality control and clarification", writes the media magazine. In the end, Deutsche Telekom decided to offer the series exclusively in the original Polish language with German subtitles in future.

AI voice for Pumuckl

Viaplay is a Swedish media company that offers its streaming service primarily in Scandinavia, but also in Poland, the UK and the USA. Viaplay does not operate directly in Germany, but markets its series via Deutsche Telekom's MagentaTV and the Viaplay channel on Prime Video. It is not known why Telekom did not notice the AI synchronization. The series with AI synchronization remains online on Prime Video.

AI-generated voices are not only heard in cheaply produced junk videos on YouTube: Traditional media companies are also experimenting with AI tools. RTL, for example, used AI to recreate the voice of the late Hans Clarin in its new edition of the series "Pumuckl". To do this, the media company fed an AI with recordings of Hans Clarin as Pumuckl. The texts were then recorded by cabaret artist Maxi Schafroth and converted into the voice of Hans Clarin. In contrast, the voices generated by Deepdub come entirely from the machine.

(dahe)