Live captions for meetings and events

Add live captions and subtitles to your meeting – whatever the language or meeting platform.

The boom in virtual meetings in recent years is well-documented, but what if your attendees speak different languages? One method of ensuring these meetings succeed in an international setting is to provide translated live captions and subtitles for participants who speak other languages. Thanks to intelligent transcription and translation technology, it is possible to hold an online meeting or presentation with live, translated captions,​ meaning events are now accessible to all participants in their own language, improving buy-in and communication.

Our solution offers live captioning of events or meetings, allowing you to choose between automated subtitles based on intelligent speech-to-text technology or live captions provided by human captioners. Furthermore, instant machine translation ensures that the subtitles are immediately translated and displayed in the requested languages, allowing participants to easily follow the meeting in their native language. Whatever platform you are using for your online event, we can ensure that all participants have instant access to the content in a whole range of different languages.

Why The Translation People

We have been supporting our customers with their multilingual communication for over 40 years. Using cutting-edge technology to make our language services as efficient as possible, we help reduce costs for our customers, with live captions being just one example.

Technology

Digital meetings are now the norm and meeting technology is constantly evolving and improving the experience of organisers and participants. Our live captioning solution integrates with all leading meeting platforms enabling live captions to be provided in real-time by professional human subtitlers or by automated speech-to-text technology.

If the translation of live captions is also requested, we can add machine translation of the subtitles into up to 100 languages. Depending on the platform, the subtitles are either integrated directly into the meeting or displayed in a separate browser window.

Professional subtitles and technicians

Live captioning requires maximum concentration and speed. Our captioners are trained and have extensive experience with live captions. They prepare for the meeting with reference material and ask for the spellings of proper names that appear during the meeting. Our technicians check the connection between the captioners and the meeting in advance and stay online during the event to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

Experienced account managers

Our account managers will be happy to advise you on the best options for your meeting or event. For many years we have been supporting event organisers with language services such as interpreting or subtitling – whether in person or online.

Comprehensive services from a single source

Technology like live captioning with automated translation is a relatively new trend. But we also offer traditional language services for meetings. These include simultaneous interpreting and remote interpreting, foreign language transcription, voiceover & subtitling and recordings. If you need your video translated, please contact us.

Choice of professional human captioners or automatic AI captions
Automatically machine translate captions for an international audience
Secure system ensuring data confidentiality

Real-time support available during meetings
Enterprise-level hosting
Integrates with all leading event platforms

Our Live Captioning Process:

  1. Meeting organisation: The user organises the meeting
  2. Connect to meeting: Either automatic captioning software, live captioners or a combination of both are connected to the meeting.
  3. Live caption generation: Delegates speak and the captions are either generated by software and reviewed, or generated by human captioners.
  4. Caption translation (optional): If translation is required, this is automatically generated by machine translation software which is also plugged into the system.
  5. Live display: Live captions are displayed on the delegates screens.

 

Languages we can provide live captions in:

Our bank of experts includes live captioners with the highest level of proficiency in an array of languages. The most common languages for live captioning are as follows, and you can see our full list of languages here:

We can translate from English into the languages above, into English from the languages above, or between language pairings above.

Whatever languages you need, get in touch for a bespoke quote.

 

Live captions for:

We are proud to have helped businesses around the world with their live captioning needs. Our clients include global businesses looking to internationalise their communications, smaller businesses looking to expand into new audiences, and everything in between.

Our bank of specialists includes captioners with expertise in a range of industries, letting us deliver impactful and engaging translations in fields like:  

and many more 

To find out how we can help your business with its interpretation needs, whatever your industry, get in touch for a bespoke quote 

 

Live Captioning FAQs:

 

What is live captioning?

Live captioning is the provision of text translations of spoken words, used to allow attendees of digital meetings and events who speak different languages to understand what is being discussed. These captions are provided by experienced human captioners, sometimes with the assistance of specialist AI technology) and are provided as readable subtitles on the meeting platform or an external window. Live captions can be translated into other languages as well, ensuring everyone in attendance can understand.

With the advent of increasingly sophisticated communications technology, there has been a  boom in online events and meetings. As the world continues to settle into a new normal, this trend looks set to continue as well. Live captioning services are a great way to guarantee that your business can operate in this digital world, and that attendees of your meetings and events are not left behind.

Live captioning is available either through advanced text-to-speech technology, or via live captions supplied by human captioners. This lets you make the decision that aligns best with your needs and your budget.

With the support of machine learning tools, live captions can also be translated in near real time so that participants can read and follow along, regardless of the language they speak. Our machine translation tools can translate subtitles into up to 100 languages, which will be displayed natively in the platform or in a separate window, depending on the software being used.

What is a captioner?

A captioner is a professional who provides captioning services. Our captioners are highly trained and experienced within the specific context of captioning, meaning they are able to quickly, accurately, and reliably caption all manner of online events and meetings.

Captioners prepare for events in advance, making sure to familiarise themselves with all reference materials, along with the spellings of participants’ names and organisations. This means they are able to follow along with the event and provide immediate translations.

What are the benefits of live captioning?

Live captioning is a reliable way to improve the experience of online meetings and events, from the point of view of both organisers and participants. Here are some key benefits of live captioning:

  • Ensuring everyone in attendance can understand: captions allow speakers of different languages to understand what’s being said, and can help to understand unfamiliar dialects in languages they do speak.
  • Accessibility: for participants who are deaf or hard of hearing, live captioning provides a way for them to understand and be included.
  • Legal compliance: some regions may have legal requirements for events to be accessible, and live captioning is a way to achieve this.
  • Versatile: live captioning can be used in meetings, video calls, events, webinars, broadcasts, and all manner of similar events. It can also be used with various communications software like Skype, Zoom, Teams, and so on.
  • Record keeping: in various industries and settings, official records may be required of events and meetings. The text-based record enabled by live captions is a valuable record keeping tool.
  • User experience: there are many ways that captioning can enhance user experience, for example if a user is attending from a noisy environment, or if they prefer reading to listening, or if they struggle to keep track of multiple speakers with audio alone.

When you work with The Translation People, you benefit from tapping into our extensive bank of expertise. Our captioners have a wealth of experience, as outlined above. We also have a team of technicians who check and monitor the connection between captioners and the event in progress, making sure that there are no disruptions.

What is the difference between closed captioning and live captioning?

Closed captioning and live captioning are both ways of providing text-based captions to accompany audio content. Closed captions are prepared in advance and can include information about sound effects and other audio elements. Users are able to turn closed captioning on or off, as per their needs.

Live captioning on the other hand is produced in real-time, and places greater emphasis on transcribing spoken word into text as it occurs.

How are live captions done?

When using human captioners, the captioner listens to the event in real-time and transcribes speech as it occurs. A team of captioners may be used when there are multiple speakers, ensuring that all speech is transcribed. Captioners often transcribe in shorthand, which is then converted to full text by specialised software: this is to reduce demands on typing speed, and allow captioners more time to process and note down what is being said.

When using automatic speech recognition software, the software ‘listens’ to the event via a microphone and transcribes the speech automatically. This type of software is able to transcribe multiple speakers at once, although it may lack the nuanced understanding a human listener is able to provide. A hybrid approach, involving software and human captioners is an excellent way to combine quality and speed while keeping costs down.

Depending on your needs, the nature of the event, and various other factors, a human or software-based solution will bring its own potential benefits and drawbacks. This is something we will look to understand at the start of a project, and make recommendations on to ensure the best fit for your needs.

 

Our Recent Projects

We’re a trusted translation provider for many leading global brands as well as smaller businesses.

  • Translation of 30,000 words into 16 languages for patients on how to improve health, fitness and reduce obesity.
  • Translation of User Manuals and Engineer's Notes into 14 languages for an engineering company.
  • Translation & subtitling of internal communications in 5 languages for a client in the food & drink sector.
  • Software Translations for an online payment system into over 50 languages.

Related Services

View our full range of translation services.

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  • Multilingual Transcription
    Our multilingual transcription service uses expert transcribers to quickly and accurately complete your project.

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Whether you have a specific project you want to discuss, need a translation quote or simply want to discuss your requirements, do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

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