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Closed captions app for Windows

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Can anyone advise on a good CC generator for watching videos on YouTube, Dailymotion, and the like?

I’m aware that for some movies the ‘CC’ button is enabled, but for others it is greyed out.

I also know that the paid-for streaming services like Netflix have CCs on all their movies - but not everything I want to watch is on those channels.

All I’m after is something that picks up the sound being sent to my PC speakers, and transcribes it into a window onscreen.

Suggestions please?

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From experience, real-time transcription can be laggy and inaccurate, especially with movies, that include sound effects and music soundtracks. Having said that, I’ve only used transcription apps in Android. Have you checked out the assistance settings they are built into Windows?

If I’m watching a video without captions I place my phone near the laptop’s speakers and use Live Transcribe. When I was working Windows did not have built in captioning services, but maybe that’s changed (I use Linux now).

The current operating systems of both Windows and Apple have built in captioning and they are both fantastic to have and sometimes superior to the application captions. Are you on the current version of Windows, try **Windows Key + Ctrl + L
**
(Apple Settings > Accessibility > Live Captions)

@kev716 said:

If I’m watching a video without captions I place my phone near the laptop’s speakers and use Live Transcribe. When I was working Windows did not have built in captioning services, but maybe that’s changed (I use Linux now).

I’ve tried that. Sometimes it works, sometimes I get gobbledygook. Depends on the video, I think - or perhaps I need better speakers (mine are brand “CREATIVE”).

In reply to @finovox

@finovox said:

The current operating systems of both Windows and Apple have built in captioning and they are both fantastic to have and sometimes superior to the application captions. Are you on the current version of Windows, try **Windows Key + Ctrl + L

Thanks. I now realise that that’s only available with Windows 11; I’m still using W10 but plan to upgrade very soon. Will try it out then!:+1:

Edited

Watch your PC videos in a Chrome browser and turn on Live Caption. This is a built-in setting that’s been around for a decade. Just click the menu, then settings and search for caption. There will be a toggle for turning Live Caption on and off.

In reply to @grantb5

I tried that - though I usually use Firefox which doesn’t seem to have that feature. Yes, with Chrome, it works a bit better than putting my phone in front of the speakers - thanks!

Now all I have to do is find out if I can get rid of the annoying popups (adblocks and Chrome don’t go together!).

Disclosure: I'm one of the developers of the app below, so take this with that in mind.

 

For Windows 10 there's no built-in option (Win+Ctrl+L is Windows 11 only), and Chrome's Live Caption only covers audio playing in Chrome. We made Live Captions & Transcribe for exactly the "caption whatever comes out of my PC speakers" case. It captions any sound on the PC (YouTube, Dailymotion, Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp, films) or the microphone, about a second behind, in any browser or app, on Windows 10 and 11. The text is big, the window stays on top, each speaker gets a color, and every session is saved as a transcript you can search or export.

 

It needs internet (recognition runs in the cloud while captions are on) and it's paid after a free trial, so if you're on Windows 11 the built-in captions are still the first thing to try.

 

Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NJHDV2W69992

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