Live Captions

Live captions make spoken content accessible to participants who are Deaf or hard of hearing and improve comprehension for many others. Whether you’re hosting an event, webinar, or meeting, adding live captions helps ensure that everyone can fully participate.

Utah State University offers several options for adding live captions, including built-in tools in Zoom and support for professional captioning services. The best option depends on your event type, audience, and accuracy needs. The Digital Accessibility Services office can help you choose the right approach and coordinate setup.

Zoom Live Captions

Zoom offers automatic live captions (also called live transcription) using built-in speech recognition. This feature is quick to enable and works well for many meetings, but it may include errors, especially with fast speech, accents, or technical vocabulary. 

Zoom also supports a manual captioning option, where a designated person types captions in real time during the meeting or event. This approach can improve accuracy — especially for specialized terms — but it requires someone to be assigned as the captioner. See the Professional Captioning Services section below if you’d like to have manual captions.

What to know about Zoom captions:

  • Automatic captions are usually accurate enough for internal meetings or informal events, but may include errors with fast speech or technical language.
  • Accuracy improves with clear audio and one person speaking at a time. Reducing background noise and speaking at a steady pace can help.
  • While automatic may be sufficient for many meetings, some events may require a higher level of accuracy. In those cases, a professional live captioning service is recommended. 

For step-by-step instructions, visit Zoom’s support page on enabling automatic captions.

Professional Captioning Services

For larger events or any event where higher accuracy is essential, we recommend using a professional captioning service. These services are especially important when captioning is needed to meet accommodation requirements. Professional captioners provide real-time, human-generated captions with significantly greater accuracy than automatic options, creating a more accessible experience for participants.

Utah State University currently partners with two recommended providers for live captioning — AI Media and 3Play Media. The best choice depends primarily on the platform you are using for your event. Because professional captioning requires advance scheduling, contact our team as early as possible if you plan to use a vendor. We will work with you to coordinate logistics, set up the connection, and ensure everything is ready before your event. 

When you contact our office to request professional captions, it’s helpful to provide the following information:

  • Name of the Event
  • Date of the Event
  • Event Start Time
  • Event End Time
  • Any Prep Materials, such as speaker names, specific terminology, etc.
  • The platform you are using to host your event.
  • A point of contact for communication (in case the captioner needs to communicate with you during the event).

There are costs associated with professional captioning services. The total price will depend on the setup required for your event and the provider you choose. Captioning expenses are billed to the department overseeing the event.

Using AI Media
AI Media is a good choice for events where captions do not need to appear directly within a live video feed or where the event will be streamed through Kaltura. For certain large-scale events, such as Commencement, our team partners with Academic Media Production to provide captions in the Spectrum.

If you are considering AI Media for your event, contact Digital Accessibility Services for support. Our office can help coordinate the request, manage the setup process, and ensure the captions are properly connected to your event.

Using 3Play Media
3Play Media is a strong option for events hosted on Zoom, especially when captions need to appear directly in the meeting or webinar. The Digital Accessibility Services team can help coordinate with 3Play Media and guide you through the setup process.

To connect a live captioner to your meeting, you will need to provide the captioning team with your Zoom meeting URL and API token. You must also enable a manual captioner in your Zoom meeting settings to allow them to enter captions. For detailed steps, see Zoom’s managing manual captions documentation for more information.

Student In-Class Live Captions

If a student in your course has an in-class live captioning accommodation through the Disability Resource Center (DRC), you will be notified directly. The DRC and the Classroom Support Team will provide detailed instructions about this process to ensure the student has access to real-time captions during class.

Additional Resources