Thank You#

The fact that you have got this far makes the time and effort the campaign team has put into creating this resource worth it. On this page you will find step-by-step instructions on how to make sure users have the option of enabling captions while viewing your stream of Twitch. There are also instructions on how to enable captions on your device as a viewwer when streamers have done the hard work of enabling them on their stream.

Thank you. The #JustTurnThemOn team. Tweet us @TurnOnCaptions on Twitter

Disclaimer#

The full terms and conditions of using this site can be found here on termsfeed.

Although every effort is taken to check the information provided to you on this site, please conduct your own research, perform virus scans of any software you download and perform back-ups of your Twitch settings before installing any plug-in.

Navigation:#

• Thank You
  • Disclaimer
• Streamer Instructions
• Step 1 - Determine what caption types your encoder supports
  • Open or Closed
  • Manual or Automatic
• Step 2 - Pick Your Caption provider
  • Closed Captions
  • Open Captions
  • Manual Transcription
  • Automatic Transcription
• Step 3 - Embed the captions in your Stream
  • OBS Studio
  • The streaming service I use is not listed
• Viewer Instructions
• References and Further Reading

Streamer Instructions#

Closed caption functionality has existed on Twitch since 2017, and works by asking your broadcast encoder (e.g. OBS Studios) to transmit caption files in an accepted format embedded in your stream, or alongside your stream. Twitch accepts captions in line 21 CEA-708/EIA-608 format and in CC1 NTSC field 1.

You don't need to know what that means at the moment, but it might come in helpful if you procure the services of a live caption provider in the future. Enabling captions on your stream is as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1. Determine what caption types your encoder supports
2. Find a caption provider that supports your choice from step 1
3. Embed the captions in your stream

Step 1 - Determine what caption types your encoder supports#

Open or Closed?#

Open captions are included into the movie or stream so that they are always visible. Nothing has to be turned on in order for the viewer to see them. In order to use open captions, media players and streaming platforms do not need to be equipped with specialised features. If you are uploading to a platform that does not support closed-captioning, these are a fantastic option, however viewers cannot switch off or customise open captions because they are integrated directly into the video stream. Although having captions on screen will help some users, they can be distracting for others and contribute to sensory overload. Taking that into account, closed caption technology is preferred.

In addition to the quality of the video or stream, the quality of open captions is also related. Video or stream quality may make it difficult to understand the captions if they are unclear or low quality.

Most major broadcasters and video streaming sites use closed-captioned videos, including Facebook Live, YouTube, and Vimeo. Closed captions are usually marked by a [CC] icon in the corner of the video player and can be turned on or off at any time.

Twitch has built-in functionality that lets users manage closed captions. When enabled, this can be found at the bottom-right of the stream, where the Settings cog and Fullscreen buttons are found, as seen in the GIF below (taken from the Twitch website, link to the page found in the references section at the end of this guide).

Manual or Automatic?#

Although you may have heard of transcription, you may not know that there are two broad types of transcription: automated and manual. What's the difference? Is there a time when transcribing should be used? What is the best one to use?

You can learn about their differences below, along with when to one type over the other.

Manual Transcription

By hand, a professional transcriber or transcribers are responsible for translating spoken words into readable and understandable text. Academic, business, legal, and a host of other industries demand services that are accurate, fast, and on time. Due to the hands-on nature of manual transcription, this is more costly than automatic transcription. The increased cost comes with a noticable increase in quality.

Automatic Transcription

In contrast to manual transcription, automatic transcription utilises voice/speech recognition software, often making use of machine learning and artifical intelligence, to turn an audio stream into a textual transcript on-the-fly. As long as a good microphone is used, and the stream's bit-rate is consistent, and high-quality datasets or examples are sourced, AI-based automatic transcription can achieve a very high success rate.

Step 2 - Pick Your Caption provider#

Unfortunately, not every live streaming application supports closed captions. Please reference the table below to see if the software you use supports them.

Closed Captions#

Closed Captions for Streams by Alejo Pereyra OBS-captions-plugin by ratwithacompiler Stream Closed Captioner by Erik Guzman

Open and Closed Captions#

Web Captioner

Manual Transcription#

MyClearText

Step 3 - Embed the captions in your Stream#

The last step is down to you! By reading a combination of your caption provider and stream encoder's documentation, you should be able to add the caption stream or overlay as quickly as with any other plugin. Note that some caption providers require you to permanently keep web browser windows open. Ensure that you keep the windows open if that is the case, or the captions may stop working.

Below are some examples of common combinations which have been provided to me. The presence of the instructions does not constitute a recommendation. Please conduct your own research, conduct virus scans of any software you download and perform back-ups of your Twitch settings before installing any plug-in.

OBS Studio with Ratwithacompiler's OBS Captions Plugin#

One closed caption plugin which has been designed to work with OBS Studio 27.0 or newer, created by ratwithacompiler, can be found on GitHub and makes use of Google Cloud Speech Recognition API to provide closed captioning. As they are closed captions, viewers can choose whether to utilise them or not via Twitch's own built-in caption support.

Features (as listed on the project's Github page):

• Completely optional for viewers on all platforms
• Captions only when the microphone source is unmuted and active to ensure safety
• Works live and in VODs, no Twitch extension required
• Requires no extra tools or website open
• Supports many common languages with western character sets
• Supports OBS delay
• Open Caption support via OBS Text Sources for sites that don't support closed captions
• Saving captions transcripts as SRT Subtitle files (.srt)
• Text filtering with custom word and phrase removal and replacement
• Supports captioning all stream audio instead of just a single source

Installation (Windows)

Requires OBS 27.0 or higher

• Close OBS if running
• Download latest Closed_Captions_Plugin.zip version for Windows from the releases section
• Extract the zip which contains a folder named obs-plugins
• Go to your OBS installation folder
• The default OBS install path is usually C:\Program Files\obs-studio\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\obs-studio\
• Copy-Paste the obs-plugins folder into the main OBS folder
• The main OBS folder should already contain obs-plugins bin and data folders
• Windows will ask to confirm the copy and replace, click yes a few times
• This will just add the plugin files to the existing obs-plugins folder
• That's it. Start OBS.
• There should now be a Cloud Closed Captions option on the bottom of Tools menu
• Click on Settings in the new Captions Preview window and select your audio source for captioning under Caption Source
• Select the OBS source that is only your microphone for best captioning results
• If you don't have a OBS source that is only your microphone but instead use a more complicated audio setup see below for more info
• Recommended settings: 3 lines (4 lines can have flickering issues on Twitch currently!), no forced linebreaks

Installation (MacOS)

Requires OBS 27.0 or higher

• Close OBS if running
• Download latest Closed_Captions_Plugin.zip version for MacOS from the releases section
• Extract the zip which contains a folder named cloud_captions_plugin
• Copy-Paste the cloud_captions_plugin folder into your OBS plugins folder
• Open Finder and in the Go menu press Go to Folder (or press Cmd+Shift+G)
• Paste ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/ and hit enter to go to your obs-studio folder
• Your obs-studio folder may contain a folder called plugins already, if not then create one
• Paste the cloud_captions_plugin folder into the plugins folder
• That's it. Start OBS.
• There should now be a Cloud Closed Captions option on the bottom of Tools menu
• Click on Settings in the new Captions Preview window and select your audio source for captioning under Caption Source
• Select the OBS source that is only your microphone for best captioning results
• If you don't have a OBS source that is only your microphone but instead use a more complicated audio setup see below for more info
• Recommended settings: 3 lines (4 lines can have flickering issues on Twitch currently!), no forced linebreaks

The streaming service I use is not listed#

Instructions for the following streaming services are currently being written behind the scenes, reach out to the team on Twitter if you need any support before they are published.

• LightStream
• vMix
• xSplit Broadcaster
• Gamecaster
• Nvidia ShadowPlay
• Wirecast
• OWN3D Pro
• OBS Studio

If you use software which is not listed above, please reach out to us on Twitter and we will add it to the list!

Viewer Instructions#

iOS#

The presence of captions on iOS is controlled at an Operating System level and can be found within the iPhone's settings app Accessibility > Subtitles and Captioning -> Closed Captions + SHD -> General > Subtitles & Captioning

Desktop Web#

The CC button (labelled as "Captions (c)" to assistive technologies) at the bottom right of the player can be used to enable or disable closed captions. Some streamers use a Twitch overlay instead of in-built functionality to deliver captions to viewers. If this is the case, you may see a button overlayed on the stream when you hover your mouse over the video.

Android#

Right below the quality setting in Android, you can see Closed Captions. Once the streamer has spoken, the option will appear.

References and Further Reading#

• Twitch Guide to Open Captions