We built the Public | Meetings Multilingual Closed Captioning tool specifically to address the limitations inherent in platforms like Youtube, Zoom, Webex, and Facebook Live.
Zoom captioning limitations:
Zoom allows up to 5 interpreted languages, but requires you to bring your own human interpreter for each language
Even if you have human interpreters, participants who need language interpretation need to download and install the desktop Zoom app to access interpreters
This option also requires an enterprise license, several days for setup, and the resources to staff language interpreters for every meeting.
For these reasons Zoom's native interpretation options are prohibitively expensive for even our largest partners.
Youtube live captioning limitations:
Youtube automatic live captioning is currently only available to English channels with over 10,000 subscribers.
If you have 10k+ subscribers, Youtube still does not guarantee the availability of automatic captions.
If you have 10k+ subscribers, and do notice these are enabled, your broadcast will still require use of the higher-latency stream option, meaning additional lag.
If you have a third party captioning plugin, you can push captions directly to Youtube, but live captioning with your own encoder currently limits you to one caption language.
Post-production captions are widely-supported, but this option prevents hearing impaired and non-English speakers from accessing and participating in your meeting.
Facebook live captioning limitations:
Facebook has introduced support for live English closed captions, but currently does not natively support any other languages.
Facebook's default live stream approach means additional latency (lag time) to support captions.
Third party tools have emerged for multilingual live closed captioning, but so far have been limited to "burn in" captions, meaning you have to run your video through their service and a separate stream is required for each additional language.
Webex closed captioning limitations:
At the time of this writing (summer 2021), Webex requires you to appoint a human transcriber to type captions.
Even if you have a fast-typing transcriber, only one caption language is supported natively.
So what's the better option?
Real-time multilingual closed captioning is now enabled automatically for live-streamed meetings by default when using PublicInput's Public | Meetings platform! Check out this demo of the multilingual closed captioning feature to learn more:
FAQ's:
Can I still use the conferencing and streaming services I currently use to host my virtual meetings on PublicInput.com?
Yes! Because this feature works through the PublicInput phone bridge, there is no need to change how you currently run meetings.
How do meeting attendees see the captions?
As long as you keep the feature enabled, meeting attendees will see the captions once the phone bridge is connected and the meeting stream has started. Attendees can customize their experience by using the translate button to see the closed captions in their preferred language or they can turn the captions off by clicking the ‘CC’ button to the bottom right of the live stream.
What do I need to do to enable PublicInput’s multilingual closed captions?
Nothing! It's already turned on by default in your meeting editor (under "more video options".)
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