I am proud to announce a new solution for adding real-time captions (in many cultures called subtitles) to a livestream. This is still work in progress (closed beta). But we thought we should share some demos, just to give you an idea of what is coming up. And of course get some feedback on what we are doing.

There is already a product on the market called Text-On-Top. It is developed by Velotype, a leading manufacturer of special keyboards for CART and STTR reporters. Text-On-Top provides real-time captioning on top of any application running on a secondary screen or computer, without interfering with the use of this secondary computer.

Although it is possible to tweak the settings in Text-On-Top, and chroma key its output into vMix, I found that approach too limiting. And one major drawback was that it does not in any way support the recording of text suitable for generating caption files (for on demand video with closed captions).

Instead the developer of Text-On-Top has built a new application called Text-On-Top Video. It currently interacts with vMix, but has been designed to interact with other software mixers, as well as function with anything that can do chroma key.

We will use it tomorrow for an event (including the Swedish prime minister). Wish us luck :)

I guess a video explains it better ;) Actually three videos:

https://vimeo.com/westreamu/totv-part1-intro length 2 minutes
https://vimeo.com/westreamu/totv-part2-reporter length 5 minutes
https://vimeo.com/westreamu/totv-part3-streaming length 10 minutes


Currently I do not know when and how Text-On-Top Video will be released or sold. But it will for sure be absolutely full of features and affordable. A Text-On-Top basic package, which will be needed, is currently USD 359. (You can use it with any keyboard or a Velotype).

This only seems to work for VoD, not for live streams. Or am I missing something?

Also tried Text-On-Top in the past, which worked for me (to a certain extent). But it is difficult to find velotypists.

Would be nice if vMix started supporting CEA 608/708. Does anyone know if this is on the roadmap?

Anyway, the future will probably be an AI solution in the cloud. I've tried a number of them, but it is hard to find one with closed captions for live streaming that have sufficient quality. Any suggestions?