YouTube Adds New Caption Options, Including the Expansion of Automatic Captions for Live Streams

YouTube has announced some new advances in its video captioning tools, which will make it easier for more channels to add caption text to their video clips.

First off, YouTube says that it’s now making automatic captions for live-streams, in English language, available for all creators.

Up until now, automatic captions have only been available to channels with over 1,000 subscribers, and even then, access was limited. Now YouTube’s opening up the option to all streamers, giving creators more ways to maximize the accessibility of their content.

Live automatic captions can be enabled within YouTube Studio, via your Stream Settings.

That’ll add another element to your streams, providing more ways to connect with different audiences and viewers. YouTube also notes that it’s planning to add additional automatic caption languages in future.

YouTube’s also expanding its subtitle translation options to mobile.

The option is currently available on desktop, with users able to translate available caption tracks into another language.

That same capacity will soon be added to the mobile app as well, adding more capacity for viewers to consume content in their native language.

And finally, YouTube’s also making video transcripts searchable, enabling viewers to find specific segments of video clips based on the caption text.

As per YouTube:

“In Searchable Transcripts, users can view and search transcripts for information that’s most relevant for them. This allows them to find the most interesting information without watching the entire video.”

That could provide more functionality in monitoring for key mentions, and tracking specific elements of clips. YouTube’s also planning to bring the same functionality to the mobile app in future.

These are helpful additions, with functionality that could facilitate various use cases, and help improve broader accessibility.

You can learn more about YouTube’s caption updates here.