ZOO Digital Group PLC is a provider of cloud software based

subtitling Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informati ...

dubbing Dubbing (re-recording and mixing) is a post-production process used in filmmaking and video production, often in concert with sound design, in which additional or supplementary recordings are lip-synced and "mixed" with original production sou ...

, and media localization services to the TV and movie industry. Its production facilities are located in El Segundo,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

;

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

, UK and

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

, U.A.E. The company employs more than 500 employees worldwide and utilizes a global network of over 5,000 freelance translators and dubbing artists.

History

2001–2003: Founding and incorporation

In 2001,

Gremlin Interactive Gremlin Graphics Software Limited, later Gremlin Interactive Limited and ultimately Infogrames Studios Limited was a British software house based in Sheffield, working mostly in the home computer market. Like many software houses established in ...

founder Ian Stewart led a merger of Kazoo3D PLC and ZOO Media Corporation Ltd to form ZOO Digital Group PLC. In 2003, two co-divisions were formed. ZOOtech Ltd was established to develop software for interactive DVDs. ZOO Digital Publishing, an operating division of the group, was established to create video games.

2003–2005: Success with interactive video games and software for DVD

In 2003, ZOO Digital Publishing published the interactive DVD for the game show, ''

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' (often informally called ''Millionaire'') is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, currently owned and ...

''. In the same year, ZOO Digital Publishing won the award for Navigation Design and Implementation Excellence at the DVD Association Excellence Awards,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. In 2004, ZOOtech launched DVD EXTRA Studio enabling new levels of interactivity on DVDs. ZOOtech also opened an office in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

in order to give the business a base for expanding DVD EXTRA applications for European markets. In the same year, ZOO Digital Publishing released ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' ''2nd Edition'' for

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...

. In 2004, for a second year, the company won the Navigation Design and Implementation Excellence, DVD Association Excellence Awards, New York. ZOOtech was also crowned the overall winner at the Sheffield Business Awards and picked up the Sheffield Business Award for Innovation. In the same year ZOO Digital Publishing bought

Hothouse Creations Hothouse Creations was a UK computer game developer, founded in 1996. Their first game '' Gangsters: Organized Crime'', sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. In 2004, it was acquired by ZOO Digital The last game it developed was '' Crime Life: G ...

, a computer games developer based in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

which had developed computer and video games including ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' on

PlayStation 1 The (abbreviated as PS, commonly known as the PS1/PS one or its codename PSX) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was released in Japan on 3 December 1994, in North America on 9 September 1995 ...

and ''

Pop Idol ''Pop Idol'' is a British music competition television series created by Simon Fuller which ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003. The aim of the show was to decide the best new young pop singer (or "pop idol") in the UK based on viewer voting and par ...

'' and ''

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...

'' on

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

. In 2005, 60% of the interactive DVDs on the market were being made using ZOOtech's DVD Extra Studio. In the same year, ZOO Digital Publishing won three awards at the DVD Association Excellence Awards ceremony in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

: ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

2005'' won the DVD Video Game Excellence Award, ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? 2nd Edition'' won the Navigation Design and Implementation Excellence Award and ''

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

, The Official Interactive-DVD'' won the Technical Achievement Excellence Award.

2006–2012: Refocus on technology for media and entertainment

In 2006, Dr Stuart Green took over as Chief Executive Officer of ZOO Digital Group and Ian Stewart stepped down. ZOO Digital Group sold two of its subsidiaries. ZOO Digital Publishing, the division creating video games was sold following a decline in the traditional DVD market. ZOO Interactive Video, also formerly part of ZOO Digital Publishing, was sold. The company adopted the operating name ZOO Digital. In the same year, ZOOtech won the Annual DVDA Excellence Award at Digital Hollywood for DVD EXTRA Studio. In 2007, ZOO Digital acquired

-based Scope Seven, a media production and design company providing compression and authoring services to video publishers including a number of Hollywood studios. ZOOtech announced a deal with

Mattel Inc. Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories a ...

(MAT) to develop DVD games, including the ''

High School Musical 2 ''High School Musical 2'' is a 2007 American musical television film written by Peter Barsocchini and directed by Kenny Ortega. The 70th Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM), it is the sequel to ''High School Musical'' (2006) and the second insta ...

DVD Board Game'' and ''

1 vs. 100 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...

DVD Game''. In 2008, ZOO Digital announced a 15-year contract with Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures International to deliver its software automation products to DVD film releases.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, ac ...

also licensed ZOO's Templated Authoring System ("TAS") in order to produce standard definition DVD titles. In 2010, ZOO Digital's new

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

toolset was adopted by a major Hollywood studio. The iTunes toolkit was designed to automate the production of menus and bonus features. In the same year, Multi Packaging Solutions (MPS) partnered with ZOO Digital to use its software for managing brand identity and marketing for multinational brands. ZOO Digital's software was designed to integrate "language translation, localization, proofing, global collaboration, version control, and archiving." In 2011, the decline in the DVD market saw ZOO Digital report a half-year loss.

2012–Present: Cloud localization services

In 2012, ZOO Digital launched cloud subtitling services for TV and movie content with ZOOsubs. 2014 saw ZOO announced by

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

as one of four vendors selected to provide new

packaging services to its

Compressor A compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a specific type of gas compressor. Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can transp ...

users. 2015 saw ZOO sign a deal with

BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadcas ...

to provide it with a new subtitling and captioning platform. In 2016, ZOO became a

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

Preferred Vendor; this changed to a Netflix Preferred Fulfilment Partner in 2018. In 2017, ZOO launched the entertainment industry's first cloud dubbing service, powered by its proprietary ZOOdubs software platform and won a

NewBay Media NewBay Media, LLC was a magazine and website publisher founded in 2006 and headquartered in New York City. NewBay Media served five marketplaces — Music, Pro Audio/AV, Video & Broadcast, Consumer Electronics, and Education. In April 2018, Fu ...

Best of Show Award at the

NAB Show NAB Show is an annual trade show produced by the National Association of Broadcasters. It takes place in April, and has been held since 1991 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show's tagline is "Where Content Comes to ...

2017 and an award at IBC Show 2017 at the IABM Design & Innovation Awards in the Post Production category. In 2018, ZOO Digital's ZOOdubs cloud dubbing service won an IABM award in the ‘Publish’ category and ZOO won the Best Performing Share Award at the AIM Awards 2018 and Company of the Year at the Small Cap UK Awards. In March 2021, Zoo Digital has announced plans to boost its progress after a £7.4 million IPO on the London Stock Exchange. It plans to collect funds from a placement by issuing 7.0 million shares at a price of 100 pence each, for a total of GBP7.0 million. In 2022, the company reported growth of 78% from the previous year.

Software

* DVD Extra * DVD Extra Studio * eBook Builder * Template Authoring System (TAS) * Media Adaptation Tool (MAT) * ZOOcore * ZOOsubs * ZOOdubs

Services (current)

Subtitling Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informati ...

Dubbing Dubbing (re-recording and mixing) is a post-production process used in filmmaking and video production, often in concert with sound design, in which additional or supplementary recordings are lip-synced and "mixed" with original production sou ...

Closed Captioning Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio por ...

Digital Distribution Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content (media), content such as Sound recording and reproductio ...

Development grants

* Collaboration Systems for Digital Media Production 8 Feb – 10 Oct, £711,570, Innovate UK award * Commercialisation of Motion Pictures Archives (COMPA) 10 Jan – 12 Dec, £765,366, Innovate UK award * Persistent And Robust Tracking of Entertainment Content (PARTEC) 11 Jun – 13 May, £338,754, Innovate UK award * Optimising Production Through Implicit Metadata In Scripts for Television (OPTIMIST) 11 Nov – 13 Apr, £267,813, Innovate UK award * Process Automation for Localisation of Dialogue in Entertainment Media (PALODIEM) 14 Oct – 16 Sep, £250,000, Innovate UK award * Multimedia Analysis for Unsupervised Dubbing In Entertainment (MAUDIE){{cite web, url=https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=104264, website=gtr.ukri.org, title=Multimedia Analysis for Unsupervised Dubbing In Entertainment (MAUDIE), access-date=2018-12-19 18 May – 21 Apr, £823,460, Innovate UK award

References

British companies established in 2001 Companies based in Sheffield Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market Dubbing studios Software companies established in 2001 Software companies of England 2001 establishments in England