Captions beta

The Captions element turns speech into live subtitles in real time. Captions can travel with the stream as closed captions that viewers switch on and off, or be drawn directly into the video as burned-in captions, also called open captions, so they show everywhere.

How it works

Place the element between your input and output in the Streamrun Editor. Speech recognition runs in the cloud on the live audio, so nothing is needed from your streaming software or encoder, and no subtitle file needs to be prepared in advance. Every output downstream of the element receives the captions.

Recognition happens as you speak, so captions appear a moment after the words are said. Speaking clearly with a good microphone and low background noise gives the best results.

Settings

Primary language

The language you mainly speak. It is used as a hint for the speech recognition, and other languages are still recognized. Leave it on Auto-detect if you are unsure. Bilingual options are available for Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and Tagalog mixed with English.

Custom terms

Comma-separated names and words that should be spelled exactly as written, for example your channel name, guest names, product names, or in-game terms that the recognition would otherwise get wrong.

Caption output

How the captions reach your viewers. See the comparison below.

Caption output modes

CEA-708 closed captions

Captions are embedded in the video stream as standard closed captions. Viewers turn them on or off in the player, and the video itself stays untouched. They appear on platforms and players that support embedded captions and support varies by platform.

Burned in, multiple lines

Captions are burned into the picture as a block of text, two lines at a time. They work on every platform and player because they are part of the video, but viewers cannot turn them off.

Burned in, word by word

Captions are drawn into the video one word at a time as they are recognized, in the style popular on short-form video. Like the multi-line mode they show everywhere and cannot be turned off.

Ideas and use cases

Accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing viewers

Viewers watching with the sound off on mobile

Live subtitles without a separate captioning service

Talks, panels, and events with several speakers

Reaching viewers who read your language better than they hear it

Subtitled clips and replays cut from the recorded stream

Beta

Captions are in beta. Recognition quality depends on audio quality, accent, and vocabulary, and the feature is still being tuned. If captions come out wrong for your content, add the problem words to Custom terms and let us know.