How to Request Live Captioning

Live Captioning your events with CaptionSync is easy. You just need to choose the service, schedule the session and watch the captions live. In this article we show how to enable your CaptionSync account for the feature, and request Live Captioning for your event.

Enabling your account for Live Captioning:

Log into CaptionSync, go to Settings -> Account Features, select Enable my account for Live Captioning from the Account Feature to Add drop-down menu, and click Request Account Feature. You will receive an email updating you about the feature status. Note that if you can't see Live Captioning on the "Account Feature to Add" drop-down menu, then it's already enabled.

Once you receive confirmation that the feature is enabled, you will see a new Live tab in your account, on the navigation panel on the left-hand side.

Scheduling a new Live Captioning Request:

Go to Live -> New Live Captioning Request, in your account:

Fill out the form fields in the New Live Captioning Request page. Next to Audio Source, enter the source of the audio that will allow our writer to listen to the event and transcribe it. Check out below a detailed description of the services we offer, if you have questions about them. Finally, click Schedule Live Captioning. You will then be contacted about the request, and all details will be arranged.

Which Service should I choose:

There are several different formats of Live Captioning you can choose, depending on the type of event you want to caption:

Remote CART - English and Spanish:

Remote CART (Communication Access Real-time Translation) services provide instantaneous translation of speech to text with less than a two-second delay. A CART writer can listen remotely and transcribe an instructor's lecture verbatim, allowing students to read the text in real time on a computer in the classroom.

Graduation and Sports Events:

A captioning professional can be provided for large events, like graduation and sporting events, to transcribe all audio. Captions are then displayed on a video screen so the audience can follow along live.

Remote Text Interpreting:

Remote Text Interpreting is an electronic note-taking system, specifically designed for educational settings, that provides meaning-for-meaning transcription of the spoken content. TypeWell and C-Print® services fall under this category.

Remote Foreign Language Hybrid:

Foreign Language Hybrid is also an electronic note-taking system (meaning-for-meaning) suitable for beginner and intermediate level language courses where most content is English, and/or the non-English content is fairly basic. The languages offered under this service are French, German, and Japanese. Note that, it is not recommended for non-educational settings, such as meetings or webinars.

Broadcast Captioning:

Is recommended for television stations and broadcasters, as it is intended for pre-scripted shows only. That is, the sessions need to be part of a regularly scheduled, repeating event, where the text feed is streamed to a broadcast encoder only (not StreamText or other online text relay), and where we require the scripts or teleprompter text before-hand.

For more information about the different types of services, call our Sales line, at 877-278-7962, or open a Support ticket.

Important Notes:

• A text transcript is made available with all your Live Captioning events. You can find more information on how to get it in our Getting a Text Transcript of my Live Captioning Event article.
  
• To order a caption output for your event, you can request it at schedule time by selecting either SRT or VTT from the Request drop-down menu, in the New Live Captioning Request page. NOTE: Caption outputs are provided at an extra cost.

• If you require multiple types of live stream outputs (e.g., iCap and StreamText), please add that request to the Comments section. E.g.:
  Please provide both iCap and StreamText live streams. Password for the Falcon encoder: passw.

• A minimum of 5-hours notice is required to schedule or re-schedule a Live session. Bookings or changes will not be accepted on less than 5-hours notice. NOTE: we do not guarantee that we can find writers available for a request placed with just 5 hours in advance. Please ensure you schedule your request with as much time in advance as possible. 

• Overages: when you book a live session, we reserve a captioner for the entire duration of your reservation. You will be billed for the entire reserved time, even if your event ends early. Please ensure you use your best estimate of the time required when booking your session. If your session goes past the scheduled duration, you will be billed for the extended time at our regular rates and our captioner will stay for as long as possible, but because the captioner may be booked for other events, they may have to leave before your event ends. To prevent having the end of your event uncovered, ensure you reserve the full amount of time needed.

• Graduate names in commencement ceremonies are traditionally not captioned, unless a list with the names, in the exact order they will be called, is made available to us. In this case, additional preparation time will be scheduled and billed, up to four hours. Please add such a request to the Comments section, and open a Support ticket to send us the file with the list of names.

• Although we provide the writer's direct contact information, before the event, any emails to writers should be cc'd to live@automaticsync.com. We would also recommend contacting them only about direct technical information.

• Depending on the browser you're using and the date/time settings in your system, the Event Date, Event Time and Expected Duration may appear different from the picture above. If your browser does not support the HTML5 date and time standard controls, it will fall back to the ISO date (YYYY-MM-DD) and 24-hour time (HH:MM). If you're using a browser that supports the HTML5 date and time standard controls, the format will match your locale preferences for the date/time settings in your system and browser (e.g., D/M/YYYY, hh:mm A). In another system/browser, the example request shown above looks like (note the differences in Event Date, Event Time and Expected Duration):

Scheduling a recurring Live Captioning event:

To schedule a Live Captioning request for your recurring event:

• Fill out the form in the New Live Captioning Request page for the first date of the series of events, and click on Setup Recurrence, below Event Time: 

• On the Recurrence Setup box select all the details for the remaining events. That is, the frequency of recurrence, on which days it will repeat, and the number of occurrences or end date:

• Finally click Setup Recurrence.

Note: Please cancel any events that are not needed as soon as possible, e.g.: holidays.

Changes to your Live Captioning request:

You can make changes to your existing Live Captioning requests, including Event Date/Time, or the contact information, from within the respective Details page, in your CaptionSync account. 

For any other changes you need to make, like Event Name or Expected Duration, please open a Support ticket. Note that changes can only be made up to 5 hours prior to the event.

Cancellations to your Live Captioning request:

You can cancel a Live Captioning request from within the respective Details page, in your CaptionSync account. Note that there is a 24-hour cancellation policy to avoid charges for scheduled time. If you need to make additions, schedule changes, or updates to specific events, please contact us at live@automaticsync.com . For other questions related to Live Captioning requests (like history, billing or UI problems), please open a Support ticket. For more information on our policy on cancellations and changes, please visit our Cancellations and Changes to your Live Captioning request article.

Monitoring your Live Captioning request:

You can log into your WordShare account, and check the schedule for each event, view assigned writers, and get the URLs to the captioning pages.

Additionally, you can monitor the status of a Live Captioning request from within your CaptionSync account, by going to Live -> Status of Live Requests:

Click on the linked AST ID for more details of a request, such as the scheduled date: