June 5th

Update

• Relating to the email template From Address, this is now updated from noreplies@brainshark.com to noreply@bigtincan.com. We recommended that you update your “Allow list” noreply@bigtincan.com, if this has not been done already. 

 

May 13th

Authoring

Adjust Custom Voice Speed 

• Custom voice creators can now set custom voice narration pace by adjusting the new Speed control. 
• Voice speeds can be dialed from .7 to 1.2 of the default speed by using the Voice settings modal of each voice they created in the Media library.
• Changes in voice settings can be previewed wherever the custom voice appears: Voice Settings, Media Library, and Generate Narration.
• When generating narration, Brainshark will use the latest voice settings.

Request Guest Narration (Classic Migration)

• Migrates and updates the Request Guest Audio flow from Classic Authoring’s Audio menu to Modern Authoring’s Narration menu. This update focuses on initiating and managing narration requests, like you would in Classic Authoring. 
  • The first time an author Request's narration in a presentation, the modal opens with a request form. 
  • Once a request has been sent, opening the modal will show the status of the request, let you manage it, see past requests, and let you initiate new requests.
    • Note: The Guest audio recording experience, and Manage Guest Authoring requests experience from within the My Content page, remain unchanged as they are independent of the core Classic Authoring UI and are not impacted by Hiding Classic Authoring. 

Apply Presenter to All Slides 

• Update to the “Apply presenter to a slide” flow in the General tab of each slide properties that includes an option to add the selected presenter to all slides.

 

May 5th

Authoring

Additional Alerts: “Out of Sync” Generated Narration Scripts

• We’ve added an “out-of-sync” alert to our new Alerts feature. This focuses on Slide notes that were used to generate narration. 
• The alert notifies the author when the current slide notes are newer than the latest generated narration, and provides a command to regenerate their narration when the alert is viewed.

Custom Avatar Refinements

• Improved avatar rendering progress percentages so it does not feel stalled
• Better distinguished custom avatars from standard when choosing them with a small  “Genie sparkles” icon.
• Better distinguished video-based avatars from image-based with a "video-based" label over the thumbnail.
• Increased the image upload limit size to 10 MB when creating an image based custom avatar.

 

Updated Slide Sorter

• Slide Sorter’s width is now resizable by dragging within a minimum and maximum limit.
• List view has been merged into the slide sorter. 
  • Authors can toggle between a thumbnail view and list view.
  • Authors’ can enter an edit mode in either view allowing them to make multiple changes and apply them at once with a single Save, like in Classic:
    • Bulk edit slide titles in list view
    • Mark slides for deletion 
    • Rearrange slides
• Slide feature icons (animation, narration, captions, attachment) have been moved to the left of the slide in slide view.
  • A new caption icon indicates if a slide has captions. 
• The “red dot” alert on the animation icon has evolved to a general alert on the slide, signaling there are items on the slide that might need your attention and providing a context sensitive alert menu item to address it. (e.g. Uncued animations)
• The context sensitive menu on slides now includes Download slide for supported slide types to make it easier to locate. 

Custom Avatars (Image-based)

• AuthoringAI Pro authors can create image-based custom avatars, each with multiple looks, on the Custom Avatars tab in the Media Library.
  • For best results, the image should be of a photo or drawing of a forward facing face.
  • If AuthoringAI cannot clearly identify or recognize a face in the image that it can animate, avatar creation will present an error.
• Creating avatars is similar to creating Custom Voices, but users can create unlimited avatars and looks. 
  • After creating an avatar, you can create additional looks within it. 
  • Though not enforced, the intent is the looks are all of the same individual, which may play a role in future features.
• Authors can keep custom avatars they create as Private or Share them with all authors. 
  • This access behaves just like Custom voices.
• Custom avatars can be used to generate videos for floating video narration or full slide video narration. 
  • When choosing an avatar, you can filter the list of avatars to show only custom avatars. 
  • Currently, only the avatar’s facial expressions and head are animated when using image-based avatars.

Generate Video Narration slides

• Allows AuthoringAI Pro users to generate a full slide video from available avatars. 
• Behaves like generated floating video narration, requiring a Generate audio step so that you finalize the audio before initiating a Render video step.

New Modern Authoring Playbar

• Provides more control and information about the things you can see when playing a slide in authoring.
  • Able to view captions during playback
  • New “Alerts” feature
  • Tracks for content types
    • Tighter control over animation timings
    • Context-sensitive menus per track
    • Able to “see” background music

 

April 8th

Authoring

Request Approval from Modern Authoring

• Authors are able to initiate the Approval workflow from within Modern Authoring using a Request Approval button in the title bar.

 

February 13th

Authoring

• Updated voices in support of AuthoringAI Pro
  • Added 113 voices, ensuring more variety to existing languages and introducing native voices to the Arabic, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, Malay, Slovak, Tamil languages for the first time.
  • Removed voices that were no longer performing well 
    • Bohdan from Czech.
    • Schiela from Portuguese.
    • Graciela and Dorotea from Spanish. 
  • Updated the internal AuthoringAI Language Packs spreadsheet with a new 2.7 tab
    • Full count of voices for each language
    • Rearranged the columns to make related features fit together, instead of the old - as released flow. 
    • Added a Brainshark Player column to make it clear it is localized also. (The Player has supported all of these languages since Spring last year.)
    • More clearly represented Arabic voices as Modern Standard and Chinese voices as Mandarin.
    • Removed Hebrew as there is no longer a committed project on the roadmap to add any additional languages.
    • To see the evolution visit History of AuthoringAI Language Packs
• Updated the Voice previews to remove the old Brainshark company boilerplate.
  • It's not just about the sound of my voice, it's also about my tone, pacing, and intonation. Am I the voice you're looking for?
• Added the ability to choose source language when translating instead of auto-detect which can help ensure the translation identifies the source language correctly.

January 14th

Authoring:

• Launch Player with Captions
  • Cadmins and optionally authors can choose whether to automatically launch the player with captions IF captions are part included with the presentation.
    • Systemwide - Administration > Presentations > Player 
      • Cadmins can choose to launch captions when the player opens. This will only work if there are captions.
      • Cadmins can choose whether to allow authors to change the defaulControls how consistent the voice is between generations. 
    • Per Presentation: Settings > Player
      • IF the cadmin allows authors to choose what to do with captions, then they can change the settings.

  • Custom Voice Tuning (Authoring AI)

    • Added Voice Settings to each custom voice that allow you to tune custom voices by adjusting the following settings:
      • Stability: Controls how consistent the voice is between generations. High settings may make the voice sound monotone.
      • Similarity: Controls how similar the voice is to the original voice samples. High settings may cause artifacts and background noise from the original voice samples.