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, Spanish, or French):

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.

Graduations and Large Events:

A captioning professional can be provided for large events, like graduations, musicals, theater, poetry readings, awards ceremonies with names to be captioned, etc, to transcribe the audio. Captions are then displayed on a video screen so the audience can follow along live.
NOTE 1: Graduation or commencement sessions require an extra 30 minutes of setup time, which will be added to the beginning of the session.
NOTE 2: 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.
NOTE 3: Any events with significant scripted content should include the scripted materials in advance.

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. NOTE: Remote Text Interpreters are not equipped to handle complex delivery setups, for example, like Adobe Connect requires. They are also not equipped to get the audio source over phone lines; only over browsers/apps, for example, a Zoom meeting. Finally, Remote Text Interpreters can only take assignments for up to 1 hour at a time. So, for events longer than one hour, multiple requests need to be set up in our system, broken into 1-hour sessions.

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.

eCART:

This is an alternative solution that uses automatic speech recognition (also known as ASR ), combined with trained real-time editors. Find out more in our Live Captioning Using eCART article.

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

Service information:

• 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. The transcript file is usually generated within 24 to 48 hours (business days), after the end of the event.

• 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. The caption file is usually generated within 24 to 48 hours (business days), after the end of the event. 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.
  
  
• Remote Text Interpreting (RTI) providers can only take assignments for up to 1 hour at a time. So, if your event will run longer than 1 hour, please schedule it as 2 or more separate Live Captioning requests, in your CaptionSync account.

• If you're displaying a pre-recorded video during the live stream, note that, traditionally, the captioner will not capture that content in the real-time captions, and will instead write [ Captioned video playing ]. So, we would recommend open captioning the pre-recorded content in advance. For more information on this, please open a Support ticket.

• 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.
  
  
• If you require the captioning of songs during your live event, note that you'll need to let us know via the Comments section, at schedule time, and provide us with the lyrics at least 24 hours in advance. Generally, this will not incur in additional charges, but for long events with a significant amount of lyrics, additional preparation time might be scheduled and billed. In which case, you'll also have to select our Graduation Captioning service instead.

• 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.

NOTE: URLs cannot be copied directly from Excel sheets, since this program adds extraneous characters to the links.

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: