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:

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 spoken English, French, German or Japanese. TypeWell and C-Print® services fall under this category.

Broadcast Captioning:

Is recommended for television stations and broadcasters.

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

Making a Live Captioning request:

Fill out the form fields in the New Live Captioning Request page:

Note that, 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):

Click Schedule Live Captioning. You will then be contacted about the request, and all details will be arranged.

Cancellations and Changes to your Live Captioning request:

If you know you’re not going to be in class or have an exam, please cancel the Live Captioning request as soon as possible. Note that ACS has a 24-hour cancellation policy to avoid charges for scheduled time. If you just need to make additions or changes to your schedule, please contact ACS at education@acscaptions.com or 800-335-0911.

Monitoring your Live Captioning request:

Our Live Captioning partner Alternative Communication Services (ACS) provides users with an account where they can access their schedule, 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:

Additional Notes:

These services are provided by our partner Alternative Communication Services (ACS).