Closed captioning in Adobe Connect

You can integrate real-time captioning of audio content into meetings and events and present these captions in the new Closed Caption display. This is a key component of the Adobe Connect accessibility initiative to provide WCAG 2.1 AA compliant (including Section 508 and EN 501 349) meetings and assists participants who are deaf or hard of hearing to participate in meetings.

The Adobe Connect Closed Caption display appears in your Adobe Connect meeting environment.

Meeting organizers can hire professional captioning providers or nominate in-meeting captioners to transcribe the meeting audio.

Meeting participants can choose to view the captions or not and can customize the caption font size and color for better readability. Each participant can change the size and placement of the floating caption display to best meet their needs.

Attendees can also add automated closed captions. They can use a meeting mic to add captions to automated speech. These captions appear directly in the meeting environment.

Enable Closed Captions

On the meeting Preferences dialog, choose the option Closed Captions.

Enable the toggle for Enable Closed captions.

Select Enable closed captions. Enter a Caption title such as English in the Caption title field.

Additional caption streams can be configured here, allowing participants to choose from multiple caption streams – perhaps displaying different languages.

Captioning can be done using different methods:

• Line captioning: Select the button to use the Enter button for sending the captions.
• Word-by-word captioning: Select the button to use the Spacebar button for sending the captions 

After you click Done, the caption menu will be available to both hosts and participants, and everyone will see a notification that “Closed captions are available now”.

Using an in-meeting captioner

If you have selected the default Assign an attendee to type captions, then you as the host will be notified that “You are the captioner.”

As you type the captions in the caption entry field, the captions are displayed to the participants who have selected to show captions.

After you click Done, the captions are available to both host and participant.

After you click Done, the caption menu will be available to both hosts and participants, and everyone will view a notification that “Closed captions are available now”.

Participants

As a participant, you can show or hide the caption display, and you can change text size and choose text color combinations to best meet your vision requirements.

In Manual captioning, if multiple caption streams are available, participants can choose a stream for viewing the captions.

Attendees can position and resize the caption window anywhere within the meeting interface. The captions stay in the same place even during layout changes.

Nominate a captioner

As a host, you can nominate anyone in the meeting to be the captioner.

You can change the captioner at any time, the captions continue from where the each captioner leaves off – participants will not be notified if the captioner changes.

Use an external captioning provider

When enabling captions, the host can also choose any of the pre-configured third-party captioning providers, or configure another captioning provider not listed by selecting ‘Other captioning provider”. 

Using StreamText as caption provider

Before using the service, you must generate and copy a StreamText URL and enter in in the StreamText request form on their website.

To generate the URL, enable closed captions, enter a caption title such as English, and then choose StreamText as caption provider.

To copy the URL (which includes the token), select CC menu > English- Copy captioning API URL.

Use the copied URL to request captioning from the StreamText website. The URL will have the following format:

/domain of the account/service/ccsvc/?token=<token>

Once the information is entered on the StreamText entry form, they can schedule the captioner.

Using VITAC as caption provider

Before using the service, you must request a Meeting ID from VITAC.

To start the captions, enable closed captions, enter a caption title such as English, and then choose VITAC as the caption provider.

In the VITAC event ID field, enter the event ID that you received from VITAC.

Click Done.

In the meeting, click the CC menu, and select English – Start VITAC CC.

A message, "VITAC CC stream started" will indicate a valid connection and captions should start.

While using VITAC it is not possible to configure and view captions from other providers.

To stop the captions choose English - Stop VITAC CC from the CC menu.

Only the meeting host can start or stop the VITAC stream. The host who starts the meeting can stop the stream.

If the host leaves the meeting, the CC stream stops, and participants see the message, "VITAC CC stream stopped".

Delete a caption provider

To delete a caption provider, click the Delete provider button, as shown below:

Providers can only be deleted when adding a new provider. To turn off captioning in a meeting without deleting a provider, disable the option Enable closed caption, and click Done.

View captions in a recording

If you enabled closed captions withing your meeting, then your meeting recording will also provide the same captions and the same options for participants. 

While watching the recording you can open the CC menu from recording playbar. Using the menu options, you can:

• Hide or show captions.
• Choose caption language.
• Modify caption text size and color.
• Move captions.

Enable Automated Closed Captions

Closed captions help to display and draw attention to your agenda and ideas in the meeting environment. Enable closed captions from Adobe Connect Central home page.

View Closed caption settings for more information.

Only hosts can enable the automated captioning from the meeting room if the administrator doesn't enable it by default. Once the captions are enabled, they are available to all the participants from the time they join the meeting room.

Show captions

Both participants and the host can show the captions from the meeting environment. It shows the caption pod on the screen.

1. Open the drop-down of CC from top bar.
2. Click on Show captions.

Hide captions

Both participants and host can hide the captions from the meeting environment. It hides the caption pod from the screen.

1. Open the drop-down of CC from top bar.
2. Click on Hide captions.

Enable Automated Closed Captions in Meeting Room

On the meeting Preferences dialog, choose the option Closed Captions.

Enable the toggle for Enable automated Closed captions.

Choose the preferred language from the Captioning Languages drop-down to view automated captions in the selected language. Select Done.

Clear all captions

Hosts can clear all the captions from the meeting environment. It deletes all the captions from the meeting server, which can't be retrieved again.

1. Open the drop-down of CC from top bar.
2. Click on Clear all captions.

Use the mic from the meeting room to add your captions. As you add the captions, there are a few precautions to support automated captioning:

• Only supports 16 languages. 
• Using any language other than preferred in Captioning languages can result in gibberish captions.
• Minimal background noise.
• Share pod audio won’t convert in captions.