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AV-Sync

Understanding AV-Sync

2 min readUpdated Oct 20264 steps

AV-Sync enables visitors to listen to audio in their own language in perfect sync with the video on display. Like a conductor keeping an orchestra perfectly in time, AV-Sync ensures audio aligns precisely with on-screen events.

What is AV-Sync?

Section titled “What is AV-Sync?”

AV-Sync allows multiple visitors to watch displayed video content while simultaneously listening to synchronized audio through their Podcatcher Pro devices — each in their chosen language. This eliminates the need for multiple screens or separate headphone stations.

Key features

Section titled “Key features”
  • Synchronizes Podcatcher Pro audio with video displays
  • Supports multiple languages simultaneously
  • Requires Guide-ID Brainbox hardware
  • Enables multilingual video experiences without duplicating screens

Benefits for your venue

Section titled “Benefits for your venue”
  • Multi-language audio without duplicating screens
  • Individual volume control for each visitor
  • Accessibility through assistive audio options
  • Simplified setup — no separate headphone stations needed

System requirements

Section titled “System requirements”

To implement AV-Sync, you will need:

  • Guide-ID Podcatcher Pro devices
  • Guide-ID Brainbox
  • Media player or compatible display (BrightSign recommended)
  • Original video content files
  • Optional: AV-Sync Video Tool software

Video: how AV-Sync works

Section titled “Video: how AV-Sync works”
How AV-Sync works: preparing your film, and how screen, Brainbox and Podcatcher stay in sync.
Transcript
  1. Imagine a film playing in your museum. Your visitors speak different languages, but there is only one screen.
  2. With AV-Sync, every visitor hears the film in their own language, on their Podcatcher Pro, in perfect sync with the picture.
  3. Here is how it works. It starts with a little preparation.
  4. The AV-Sync Video Tool takes your film, and splits it in two.
  5. A video with a silent timecode track. That goes onto your media player.
  6. And the narration, in every language. You upload it to an AV-Sync stop in the Platform, with a video code, such as A101.
  7. Through the Basecamp, the audio is copied to every Podcatcher. So the sound is already on the device.
  8. Now, the visit. The media player plays the film on the screen.
  9. A cable from the media player carries the timecode to the Brainbox. Now it knows which film is playing, and how far along it is.
  10. The Brainbox sends that timecode out over Bluetooth, all the time.
  11. A visitor holds their Podcatcher to the beacon at the screen. The Podcatcher now listens for this film.
  12. It jumps to exactly the right moment, and plays the narration in the visitor's own language.
  13. Someone who arrives halfway starts at the right moment too. And everyone sets their own volume.
  14. When the light on the Brainbox blinks green, everything is working.
  15. In the next video, we connect the Brainbox to your media player.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”
  1. The original audio is extracted from the video content
  2. It is replaced with an inaudible timecode track
  3. The audio is uploaded to an AV-Sync stop in the Platform. Like all tour content, it reaches the Podcatcher Pro devices when you publish the tour and the devices sync in the Basecamp
  4. While the video plays, the Brainbox reads the timecode and sends it via Bluetooth to the Podcatcher Pro devices, which play their stored audio from exactly that point. Only the timecode travels over Bluetooth, never the audio itself

The timecode remains completely inaudible to visitors — they only hear content in their selected language through the Podcatcher Pro.

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