Accessibility

How to add captions to church videos & streams

Captions do two big things at once: they make your services genuinely accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, and they reach the large majority of people who watch video on mute. For a church, that's both a matter of welcome and a matter of reach. Here's how to add captions to recorded videos and live streams, and how to keep them accurate.

Why captions matter more than most teams realise

• Accessibility — members who are deaf or hard of hearing can follow along fully.
• Silent viewing — most social and much web video is watched without sound; captions keep your message from being lost.
• Comprehension — captions help non-native speakers and anyone in a noisy environment.
• Searchability — caption text can help platforms understand and surface your content.

Captioning recorded videos (VOD)

Option 1 — Automatic captions on the platform

YouTube and Facebook can automatically generate captions for uploaded videos using speech recognition. This is free and instant, but not perfect — it stumbles on names, theological words and Bible references. Always review and correct auto-captions before you consider a video done.

Option 2 — Upload a caption file

For full control, create a caption file (commonly .SRT or .VTT) and upload it. You can:

• Start from the platform's auto-captions, download them, and correct the text.
• Use a captioning tool that transcribes the audio, then edit the result.
• Type them from scratch for short clips.

Option 3 — Burn captions into clips

For social sermon clips, captions are usually burned in (open captions) so they show no matter where the clip is watched. Auto-caption apps make this quick.

Captioning live streams

Live captions are harder because there's no time to edit, but there are real options:

• Platform automatic live captions — YouTube can provide automatic captions on eligible live streams with no extra setup.
• Automatic speech-recognition tools — captioning software and services listen to your audio and produce live captions you can send into your stream.
• Professional live captioners (CART) — a trained person types captions in real time for the highest accuracy; worth it for larger churches or where accessibility needs demand it.

Getting captions accurate

• Feed clean audio — close mics and a desk feed beat a room mic every time.
• Review names and references — these are where auto-captions most often go wrong.
• Keep lines short — a couple of lines on screen at a time, timed to the speech.
• Build a name/term list where your tools allow it, so recurring words are spelled right.

Captions and on-screen scripture work together

Captions carry the spoken words; an on-screen scripture bar shows the reference and verse clearly and correctly. Because auto-captions so often mangle Bible references, having TajiCast display the actual verse — detected from the audio and shown as a lower-third in OBS or vMix — means viewers always see the passage spelled and cited correctly, even when the captions guess wrong.

Frequently asked questions

Can I add live captions to a church stream?

Yes. YouTube can generate automatic live captions on eligible live streams, and there are automatic speech-recognition tools and services that produce live captions you can embed. For the highest accuracy, some churches use a professional live captioner.

Are automatic captions accurate enough for church?

They've improved a lot but still make mistakes, especially with names, theological terms and Bible references. For recorded videos, generate automatic captions and then review and correct them before publishing.

Related: Accessibility for church services · Making sermon clips