The smart studio that is coming: automatic director, clips, live transcription and translation
What turns a one-person broadcast into a full studio - live subtitles already working, and two capabilities in development: a director that picks the frame by itself, clips and an event film cut automatically, and live subtitles in Hebrew and in the languages of your community abroad.
Honesty first: what works today and what is coming
What Bima does today, and does well: entry by personal code, a watermark on every viewer, who is watching now and disconnection within seconds, broadcasting from the browser and from professional gear, automatic recording and an audit log. That is the product you get tomorrow morning.
Two of the capabilities on this page already work today: the automatic director runs from the console in three modes (off, suggest, automatic), and live transcription and translation are switched on from the broadcast policy panel. The third, clips and the event film, is in development and is marked "coming soon" until it truly works for you.
The automatic director: the frame follows whoever is speaking
In a hall with several cameras, or with one wide camera, the automatic director recognizes who is speaking and from where, and picks the frame: a close-up of the rabbi during the lesson, host and guest in a conversation, the wide hall when the crowd sings. It moves the frame like an experienced camera operator, smoothly rather than in jumps, and respects simple rules: never cut too fast, never repeat the same zoom, stay wide when it is unclear who is talking.
The operator stays in charge: take over at any moment, lock a frame, or run the director on only part of the broadcast. Every decision it makes is recorded, so you can learn from it and tune it for the next event.
The "Participants" page in the console is where you enter who is expected to appear, with name, role and priority order. Today the operator raises a name-and-role caption from that list with one click; a caption that appears by itself, following the source that is speaking, is in development.
- Works with one source or several, no special equipment in the hall
- A name-and-role caption in one click from the participants list; an automatic caption that follows the speaking source is in development
- Full manual control at any moment; the default is always conservative
Clips and an event film that cut themselves
The same director that knows who spoke and when also knows which moments mattered. At the end of the event it proposes short clips (the blessing, the song, the announcement) and a short event film, cut from the recording according to its decisions and to the chapter marks the operator placed in real time.
The organizer approves, reorders and downloads, or sends them to the authorized audience through the same code mechanism, with the same personal watermark. Nothing is published on its own.
- Clips of 30 to 90 seconds, ready to share within the community
- An event film of a few minutes instead of a two-hour recording
- The same protection as the broadcast: personal code, watermark, audit log
Live transcription and translation: subtitles in Hebrew and in the community's language
A lesson in Hebrew with an audience in New York, Paris and Antwerp. Live transcription turns speech into on-screen subtitles within seconds, and translation shows them in the language the viewer chose: English, French, Portuguese, Russian, German or Dutch, like the interface itself. After the broadcast a full transcript remains, searchable and downloadable.
Privacy comes first: transcription is off by default and is switched on deliberately, broadcast by broadcast. Only then does that broadcast's audio go, in windows of about ten seconds, to Google's Gemini model on Google Cloud (Vertex AI, United States), only for this purpose, and never to train models on your content. No video is sent. The full detail is in section 9 of the privacy policy.
- Live subtitles in Hebrew and five more languages, chosen by the viewer
- Subtitles stay with the broadcast; a full transcript to download and search is in development
- Off by default; enabled broadcast by broadcast by the organizer
Where it stands
The director and the subtitles run in production on our own broadcast servers in Israel, and are switched on per broadcast from the console. Our advice for a first event: run the director in suggest mode, where a human operator approves every decision, and move to automatic only once you have seen that the suggestions are good. Clips and the event film are in development.
Want to be among the first? Write to us. We would be glad to run a joint pilot broadcast.
Frequently asked
Does this work today?
The automatic director and live subtitles work today and are switched on from the console. Clips and the event film do not yet - they are marked "coming soon" and will appear in the console only when they work for you.
Does our content go to artificial intelligence?
Only if the organizer switched on live subtitles for a specific broadcast: then that broadcast's audio goes, in windows of about ten seconds, to Google's Gemini model on Google Cloud (Vertex AI, United States), only for the subtitles and the transcript, with no model training on the content and no video sent. The automatic director sends nothing out - it runs on our own server. Outside broadcasts, AI also powers the instant answer on the site's contact form and two console tools a manager runs deliberately (extracting an invitee list from a file, and generating a brand image). The full detail, including who and where, is in section 9 of the privacy policy.
Will the director replace a camera operator?
It replaces the need for a director sitting at the switcher all evening. You still need a good camera and a good microphone; the decision "which camera now" it takes on itself, and you can override at any moment.
In which language are the subtitles?
The source in Hebrew (or the broadcast's language), and translation into each of the six interface languages. The viewer chooses; the organizer decides which languages to allow.
Related guides
Related articles
Related features
Want to see it on your community?
We set up your organization, walk your first broadcast with you, and talk to your filtering provider.