Last updated on January 23rd, 2024 at 02:17 am
This tutorial will show you how to enable live video and audio captions on Chrome.
Do you wish you could read the captions of a video or audio, especially when you’re in a noisy place?
Many who are hard of hearing, or can’t understand foreign accents would find these captions helpful.
You can turn on captions on YouTube videos by clicking on the CC button. However, not all web videos provide this facility.
If you want to read the captions of a video, or podcast, you can do so in Google Chrome.
Chrome can not only play a local video but also add live captions to it.
Live Video and Audio Captions on Chrome
This feature is also known as Live Caption. It’s a built-in Chrome feature that automatically generates captions for various audio and sources you encounter while browsing.
This includes:
- Videos: Both regular videos and live streams play within Chrome tabs.
- Podcasts: Audio played from podcast websites or embedded players.
- Games: Audio elements within browser games.
- Video calls: Live captions can transcribe the audio from video calls made through Chrome, such as those on Google Meet.
- Other audio media: Any audio playing through Chrome, even if it’s not classified as one of the above categories.
Live Caption essentially acts as a real-time transcriber, displaying the spoken words as text on your screen.
Who Will Find this Feature Helpful?
Live caption on Chrome will be useful for:
- People with hearing impairments: Live Caption provides an alternative way to access audio content, making it more accessible for those who have difficulty hearing.
- People in noisy environments: If you’re in a loud place and can’t hear the audio, Live Caption can help you follow what’s being spoken.
- Multitasking: You can glance at the captions while doing other things, allowing you to partially consume the audio content even if you’re not fully focused on it.
- Language learners: Live Caption can provide a visual aid for understanding spoken language, which can be beneficial for those learning a new language.
You can easily enable live video and audio captions on Chrome by following these steps.
Step 1 – Update Chrome
Make sure Chrome is updated. The caption feature works only on the latest version of Chrome.
To Update Chrome go to the three dots in the top right-hand corner.
Over here you can check whether you have the updated version of Chrome.
Step 2 – Go to Accessibility
Click on the same three dots and go to Settings.
On the left panel, select Accessibility.
Step 3 – Turn On Live Caption
Choose the first option and turn on Live Caption.
Step 4 – Add Language
The default language is English. However, you may add other languages if you wish.
Click on Add languages.
At the moment you can add only three languages – French, German and Italian.
There’s a language search option. However, it doesn’t seem to work.
Although Malay is a supported language in Google, it’s not available for the live caption option.
There are a bunch of other options you can include. Watch the video below to take a look.
Step 4 – Test Live Caption
Now that we’ve enabled live caption, let’s test to see whether it works.
To do this, play a video and see whether the captions come on. Here we are playing a YouTube video, and the captions appear in a black box below the video.
Here’s the caption for a podcast. We can see that the caption is displayed.
That’s how you enable live captions for audio and video on Chrome.
Now, go ahead and give the steps a try.
Frequently Asked Questions
The live caption feature is available for offline videos on one condition. You must open the video in Chrome.
Right-click on the audio or video clip and open it with Google Chrome.
No, you can switch to another tab on the Chrome browser and still see the live caption.
Here are the fixes you can try:
1. Try refreshing the page
2. Turn the auto caption off in the Accesibility section (see above) and then turn it on again.
3. Close the Chrome browser and relaunch it.
