What you need to know
- Real-time video translation is on the way to Microsoft Edge.
- A button for enabling video translation first appeared a few weeks ago, but it does not work yet.
- Based on the dropdown menu that now appears, real-time translation will support English, French, Spanish, and Russian to start.
Video content is king when it comes to the web. Soon, Microsoft Edge will translate videos in real time at the push of a button. The feature, first spotted by Leo Varela, will soon be in testing among Canary Channel Insiders. Insiders will be able to translate videos into four languages, English, French, Spanish, and Russian.
A button to enable real-time translation first appeared for Canary Channel Insiders a few weeks ago, though it didn’t do anything at the time. Now, testers see a dropdown menu to pick a language for real-time translation. That menu, however, does not let you actually enable the feature.
We’ll likely have a better idea of how the feature works in the near future.
It seems that video translation in Edge will initially support four languages, in Canary Microsoft has added a combobox to choose the language, the translation itself doesn’t seem to work yet:https://t.co/qgVucZ7Tne.https://t.co/4xH7ts99gQ pic.twitter.com/2VjUxwa0XjNovember 9, 2023
Microsoft has been in the translation business for years. Skype began testing real-time translation in 2015. Microsoft has improved translation tech steadily over the years, including TruVoice real-time translation, which makes the translated words sound like the original speaker rather than a machine.
Unfortunately for those hoping to hear the Windows Central Podcast, MrBeast, and other YouTube personalities in various languages, the real-time translation that’s on the way to Edge is text-only. The experience will be similar to watching a video with subtitles on, but those subtitles will be in your language of choice.
