AI-generated videos for short messages are only as well received as manually created ones if they are edited by humans. News organizations—including Bloomberg, Reuters, and The Economist—have been using AI-powered video services to meet growing audience demand for audio-visual material. A study recently published in the journal Journalism shows that the automated production of automated news video is better with human supervision. Incorporating automated news video methods can enhance viewer engagement.
Examining an Automated News Video Study
A study evaluated the reactions of 4,200 UK news consumers to human-made, highly-automated, and partly-automated videos that covered a variety of topics, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Donald Trump, and the Wimbledon tennis championships. The partly-automated videos were post-edited by humans after the initial automation process. The results show that there were no significant differences in how much news audiences liked the human-made and partly-automated videos overall. By contrast, highly-automated videos were liked significantly less. In other words, the results show that news video automation is better with human supervision.
This illustrates the effectiveness of automated news video when paired with skilled human oversight, highlighting its potential for high-quality output.
Moreover, using automated news video solutions can streamline production processes, allowing for quicker turnaround times.
One key takeaway of the study is that video automation output may be best when it comes in a hybrid form, meaning a human-machine collaboration. Such hybridity involves more human supervision, ensuring that automated video production maintains quality standards while taking advantage of computers’ strengths, such as speed and scale. The study used videos from PA Media as the human-made videos. The partly and highly automated videos were created by the study’s researchers using the Wibbitz platform. The study found that:
- The automated videos performed significantly worse than the fully manually made ones in matching the video’s textual content to its visual context and the relevance, quality, and variety of the images included in the videos.
- A significantly higher proportion of respondents thought that “Most or all images and/or moving footage related well to the story” in the fully human-made videos than they did in the highly automated videos.
- For the partly automated videos, that difference disappeared.
- Other deficiencies with the automated videos, such as the quality and variety of images they included, were not eliminated by post-editing.
This trend is evident in the emergence of automated news video tools that cater to the changing landscape of media consumption.
This may have been because the quality and variety of images that appeared in the automated videos were, in part, determined by the particular image libraries the software had—or did not have—access to.
Ultimately, the balance of human expertise and automated news video technology fosters innovative storytelling.
A significantly higher proportion of respondents thought that the “music was suited to the news story” in the fully human-made videos than in the ones made with automation. The software used to produce the automated videos required the frontend operator to manually choose music to accompany the videos from the tracks made available within the interface. This suggests that the selections of music to accompany the automated videos may have been inferior to those of the professional journalists at PA Media behind the human-made videos.
The Human Touch With Templater®
While AI can help streamline some aspects of video production, the study highlights the crucial role human oversight plays in ensuring quality and audience engagement. This is where tools like Dataclay’s Templater become invaluable, bridging the gap between AI’s potential and human creativity.
- Templater empowers video creators to build customizable templates in After Effects, defining the structure, style, and branding elements of their videos. This ensures consistency and adherence to brand guidelines.
- Templater seamlessly integrates with various data sources, including spreadsheets and JSON files, enabling the dynamic population of templates with information. This streamlines workflows and reduces errors.
- By integrating automated news video into workflows, organizations can maximize both creativity and efficiency in video production.
- Features like Time Sculpting enable sophisticated adjustments to the timing and duration of layers, maintaining video design integrity even with varying footage lengths.
- Templater supports diverse languages and right-to-left scripts, facilitating localization for global audiences.
- Using Templater’s Replication feature for compositions in After Effects greatly reduces repetitive drudgery while allowing for human interaction in the versioning process.
By leveraging Templater, human editors retain control over crucial creative decisions while automating repetitive tasks. This hybrid approach enhances efficiency without compromising quality. Templater’s integration with AI-generated content allows editors to leverage the benefits of AI while retaining the nuanced human touch that resonates with viewers.
Conclusion
Overall, the study’s findings underscore the need for human-centered approaches to AI video production. Tools like Templater provide a powerful solution, enabling news organizations and other video producers to harness the potential of AI while maintaining the essential human element that drives audience engagement.
