In today’s global and diverse digital landscape, ensuring your content is accessible to everyone is essential for a successful event. webinar.net's Live Closed Captioning feature leverages advanced, automated speech-to-text technology to provide real-time subtitles during your live webinars.
This feature is compatible with both Live and Pre-Recorded Live webinars.
Live webinars: In a live webinar, the transcription engine will automatically start once the session begins and display subtitles within the component window.
Pre-Recorded Live webinars: Before a pre-recorded live webinar, make sure that subtitles have been created and are present in the Lab. This will be the "prepared transcripts" that the component will use and display as subtitles to your audience.
Presenters will not see these prepared transcripts in the Presenter Console, but a banner will appear in the Live Closed Captioning window indicating that prepared transcripts are currently being shown to the audience.
If you do not see this component available, reach out to support@webinar.net to enable the feature.
Once enabled, you will be able to access the new Live Closed Captioning component from the Interface Builder and add it to your console for audience accessibility.
Component Configuration
Language Settings
Main Language: By default, the component will use the language chosen when you build your webinar.
Click here for more information about the webinar language.
Secondary Languages: Add secondary languages if speakers will use other languages during the presentation (e.g., English and French).
Closed Caption Translation
Selecting one of the checkboxes below will allow audience members to choose an available alternative during the presentation:
NOTE: You can select a maximum of five (5) languages for audience translation.
Available Languages:
Afrikaans | Slovenčina (Slovak) |
Bahasa Indonesia | Soomaali (Somali) |
Bahasa Melayu | Suomi (Finnish) |
Català | Svenska (Swedish) |
Čeština (Czech) | Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese) |
Dansk | Ελληνικά (Greek) |
Deutsch | Русский (Russian) |
English | Српски (Serbian) |
Español | Українська (Ukrainian) |
Filipino | עברית (Hebrew) |
Français | العربية (Arabic) |
Hrvatski | فارسی (Farsi) |
Italiano | हिन्दी (Hindi) |
Latviešu (Latvian) | ไทย (Thai) |
Nederlands (Dutch) | 한국어 (Korean) |
Norsk (Bokmål) (Norwegian) | 中文（简体） (Chinese Simplified) |
Polski (Polish) | 中文（粵語） (Chinese Cantonese) |
Português (Brasil) | 中文（繁體） (Chinese Traditional) |
Română (Romanian) | 日本語 (Japanese) |
Live Audio Translation
While captions allow your audience to read along, the Live Audio Translation add-on feature allows them to hear your presentation in their preferred language, breaking down language barriers and making your webinars more inclusive than ever before.
Using Live Closed Captioning in the Presenter Console
Starting Live Closed Captioning
There are two ways to start Live Closed Captioning:
Manual Start - Blue Button
Auto Start - When "Start" is pressed.
NOTE: Starting Live Closed Captioning requires presenters to be connected to the Presenter Console or for the RTMP stream to be pushed to the RTMP Server.
Live Webinar
Once the presenters are connected inside the Presenter Console, they can access and start Live Closed Captioning before the presentation begins.
Speaking Language Indicator: Displays the language detected in the audio stream.
Pre-Recorded Live Webinar
When the webinar is in PRL, presenters will not see the prepared transcript text inside the console. Instead, they will see a notice banner within the Live Closed Captioning window confirming that prepared transcripts are currently live to the audience. This banner remains visible even if presenters start captioning early to test the feature.
When Live Q&A begins, the system automatically switches from the prepared transcript to real-time captions generated from the active audio.
If presenters start captioning before Live Q&A, these early captions will not be visible to the audience; the audience continues to see prepared transcripts until Live Q&A officially starts.
Restarting Live Closed Captioning
Service Interruption
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Unable to Recover
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Failed Restart
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Live Closed Captioning in the Audience Interface
Before the presentation starts, the audience will see the Live Closed Captioning component in a pre-start state. Once the presentation begins, the closed captioning will appear in real-time:
On-Demand Webinar Subtitle Generation
For webinar types where there is no live component, such as "media file" or past recorded webinars already on-demand, subtitles can be automatically generated and made available to audience members through the standard media player controls.
To ensure subtitles are generated for your on-demand webinar, be sure to select the Auto Generate Subtitle option when setting up your webinar, or enable it on the general settings page:
Generating Subtitles Through The Lab
After the presentation, navigate to The Lab, and look under the Subtitles tab for the "Generating subtitles" message. If the Auto Generate Subtitle option was left unchecked, or captions aren't available, a generate subtitle option will be available:
After selecting the preferred subtitle language, the subtitle generation process will begin:
Once the generation is complete, the auto-generated subtitle track will be listed:
NOTE: By default, the auto-generated subtitle track is not active!
Review and enable the newly created captions by selecting the pencil icon.
You can perform any caption edits required, and then populate the Active checkbox provided.
The download button is available at the top-right corner of the window to download the generated captions for offline editing or archival as well!
As a final step, be sure to click the Publish button after activating or editing your subtitles to push through the most recent edits and make captions available to your webinar audience.
For further assistance, contact us through chat or send us an email at support@webinar.net.