Captions and subtitles are everywhere and for good reason. Captions and subtitles are everywhere and for good reason. In Canada, 5.6% of people are d/Deaf or have serious difficulty hearing and rely on captions to get information and enjoy entertainment. They’re also popular with people who don’t have a hearing disability.
Let’s take a look behind the scenes at how captions and subtitles make their way to your screen. There are two types of captioning: offline captioning, also known as prerecorded captioning, and live captioning. In this article, we’ll explore live captioning and the technology that makes it possible. We’ll also explain broadcast captioning and CART captioning, two special types of captioning that make live TV, events, education, and other everyday situations more accessible.
To learn more about offline captioning and subtitles, check out our comparison article.
Live Captioning Basics
Live captioning provides real-time captions for spoken content. Think about watching TV in a noisy sports bar or airport terminal. You’ve likely noticed white text with a black background scrolling up from the bottom of the screen. Or perhaps you’ve struggled to turn off the automated captions that someone accidentally activated during a Teams or Zoom meeting. These are live captions.
While live captioning is available in more places than ever these days, do you know how it works? Let’s start by looking at the two main technologies that power this accessibility service: Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and human experts.
Live Captioning Technology
ASR technology uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect what people say and convert it into text. This is a popular option because of low costs and easy implementation. The quality of machine output can vary, though, so it’s important to choose the right tool for your situation. We’ll explore this more in depth later in the article.
Human technology involves experts with extensive training and experience who use various tools for broadcast captioning or Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART). These options provide the highest accuracy, nuance, and quality, which is reflected in the costs.
So what do you get for this investment? Broadcast captioning provides captions for live TV programs. CART captioning is a specialized form of live transcription that creates a verbatim text version of all spoken language for a wide variety of events and media.
Broadcast captioning and CART captioning are performed by stenographers or voice writers, both of whom use specialized equipment to keep up with speakers, transcribing up to 300 words per minute, on average.
Stenographers use a stenography machine with a special phonetic keyboard which has a limited number of keys representing specific sounds or combinations of sounds. They press multiple keys at the same time, like playing a cord on a piano, to record spoken words efficiently. Specialized software then converts shorthand text to a full text transcript. Stenographers often have their own custom glossary built throughout years of experience that speeds up their work.
The second method of creating broadcast or CART captions involves a voice writer who listens to the audio feed from an event and re-speaks verbal content into a microphone. Voice recognition software then converts it into a written transcript. See both processes in action in this video commissioned by the CBC, The Canadian Association of Broadcasters and Accessible Media Inc.
Stenographers and voice writers also work in legal settings as court reporters to create verbatim transcripts of proceedings for record keeping and review when necessary. This is a distinct service from providing CART captioning in a legal setting so people who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing can follow and participate in the proceedings in real time.
Who uses CART captioning?
CART captioning is an accessibility service designed for people who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. It removes a barrier that would exclude them from things like staying informed about breaking news, fully enjoying a play at the theater or getting the same information as hearing students in a graduate school class.
It’s also helpful for people who find it easier to process written language than spoken language. For example, neurodiverse learners can use CART in classrooms to improve comprehension and reduce cognitive overload.
How is CART captioning displayed?
As we’ve seen, CART captions are useful for many settings, including live TV broadcasts, conferences, webinars, meetings, classes, and even rodeos.
There are several ways that people can access these written transcripts. Most live TV broadcasts provide CART captioning directly on screen. Viewers can turn it on or off using the closed caption setting.
For conferences and other live events, the CART transcription can be displayed on a projection screen, shown on smartphones or laptops or accessed remotely via a secure website.
What might this look like in practice? Let’s say you’re a Deaf student getting your PhD in biochemistry. You may need simultaneous American Sign Language interpretation for course lectures, as well as CART captioning to access the specific English terminology used in your field. With the CART transcript, you don’t have to struggle to take written notes while also watching the ASL interpretation. To see the live transcription, you log in to a secure website on your laptop and read the text as it appears on screen. Since you’re accessing the content remotely, the captioner can sit anywhere in the room with their equipment.
AI Powered vs. Human Powered
ARS has significantly improved with advances in AI technology and captions are available nearly everywhere. Teams and Zoom offer real-time captioning for meetings and many smartphones have an automated caption option. YouTube creates automatic subtitles for most videos and PowerPoint has an option to create an automatic transcription during a presentation. These options are free or come included with the main software license, making them a popular choice.
But how does the quality of AI-powered captions compare with human-powered captions? In the most recently published research, ARS-powered solutions still aren’t as accurate as human-powered, especially for live captioning. According to a research article in ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing, “Scientific publications and industry report very low error rates, claiming that artificial intelligence has reached human parity or even outperforms manual transcription. At the same time, the [d/Deaf and hard of hearing] community reports serious issues with the accuracy and reliability of ASR. There seems to be a mismatch between technical innovations and the real-life experience for people who depend on transcription.”
Given this disparity, how should you decide which solution to use?
- Start by considering your audience. Who will be attending your event? What accessibility needs do they have? Will they participate in person or remotely?
- Next, consider any accessibility rules or regulations that apply to your situation.
- And finally, evaluate your budget. If you’re hosting an online conference, for example, you may choose to use CART captions for the plenary sessions and specific breakout sessions, while providing automated captions for sessions where no attendees have requested captioning.
Practical Tips for Scheduling CART Captions
- Book early: Experienced CART captioners are in high demand, so contact your provider at least a week in advance for in-person events during business hours. Evening and weekend events can take longer to schedule. The sooner you book, the better!
- Provide context and materials: Send event agendas, speaker names, technical vocabulary, acronyms, and presentation slides before the event.
- Decide on the format: Will the CART captioner be remote or on-site? What you choose will depend on your budget, the format of your event, the accessibility needs of your attendees, and internet connectivity at your event location.
- Choose how to display captions: Decide if they’ll be projected on a screen, embedded in a webcast, or shown on personal devices. If you’re hosting an online meeting, check if your platform supports real-time caption integration, like CART captions in Teams or Zoom.
- Make sure you have the right equipment: If the captioner is in the room, they’ll need a table or desk with a clear view of the speakers and access to a power outlet. For remote connection, you’ll need to verify internet speed and stability, as well as ensuring a good microphone and audio feed setup.
- Discuss additional services: CART transcripts can be adapted for closed captions or subtitles in multiple languages if you plan to share the event video afterwards. Discuss this with your provider in advance, as there may be additional costs for this and other related services.
How CART Captions Help You Comply with Regulations
CART captioning is an important part of your accessibility and compliance toolkit. Here’s a quick overview of applicable regulations and who they cover.
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Accessibility Requirements
- Who it applies to: All licensed broadcasters and certain streaming or online services regulated by the CRTC.
- What it requires: Programming must be fully captioned during broadcast hours, with captions that meet strict quality standards for accuracy, synchronization, completeness, and placement. Live content must include real-time captions, and organizations must monitor and report on captioning quality.
Accessible Canada Act (ACA)
- Who it applies to: All federally regulated organizations, including companies in broadcasting, telecommunications, transportation, banking, and other sectors under federal jurisdiction.
- What it requires: Organizations must identify, remove, and prevent barriers to accessibility—particularly in communication and information—through formal accessibility plans, regular progress reports, and public feedback processes.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and CAN/ASC-EN 301 549
- Who it applies to: Federal agencies and federally regulated entities providing digital content and often adopted as best practice by other organizations.
- What it requires: Live audio content in multimedia formats must have real-time captions, and captioning systems must allow for display, customization, and preservation of captions.
Need help with CART captioning?
Contact us today or visit our Accessibility Solutions page for more details about how ITC Global can help expand your audience and meet accessibility requirements with CART captions.
