A Computer Systems Plus company · Fresno, CaliforniaSystem statusHosted in the USAsales@civicca.com

For city councils, boards and commissions

Live captions and translated text for public meetings.

Put them on the chamber display, residents' phones, and your livestream. Use the encoder you already have, with controls designed for recess and closed session.

English captions plus up to 8 translation languages per meeting, chosen from 75.

Request a demo See how it works
  • No new encoder
  • No resident app
  • No per-viewer fees
  • Pauses for closed session
  • Live captions (WCAG 2.1 SC 1.2.4)
  • English + up to 8 of 75 languages
  • About 1 s from speech to caption
  • RTMP & SRT from your encoder
  • Works natively with CivicCA

Works with

  • CivicCA
  • Epiphan Pearl
  • OBS Studio
  • vMix
  • YouTube Live
  • Zoom
  • Any RTMP or SRT encoder

Supports live captioning (WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.2.4) and language access. Captions are one part of accessible meetings; they don't by themselves make an agency's website or apps meet the ADA Title II rule.

How it works

Captions start when the meeting does

No new hardware in the chamber. Point the encoder you already stream with at SentraCaptions, and speech is captioned and translated live.

  1. Step 01

    Send the meeting audio

    Add SentraCaptions as a destination on your encoder (Pearl, OBS, vMix and others) over RTMP or SRT, next to your YouTube or website stream.

  2. Step 02

    Captions in about a second

    Speech is captioned live and translated into each language you choose, with the names of your council members, streets and neighborhoods spelled right.

  3. Step 03

    Everywhere residents are

    On the dais screen, on any phone by scanning a QR code, on your YouTube livestream, and in your agenda software. After the meeting, transcripts are ready to download.

How SentraCaptions works: the chamber encoder sends the meeting audio to SentraCaptions, which turns speech into text, applies local names and autocorrect, translates it, and sends live captions to the chamber screen, residents' phones, the agency website, Zoom, YouTube Live and transcripts. CivicCA starts, pauses and closes captioning through the API, shows live, paused or ended on its dais control screen, and receives webhook notices and the transcripts.
From the microphones on the dais to every screen residents read. Open the diagram full size.
Read the diagram as text
  1. In the chamber: the dais microphones feed the encoder (Pearl, OBS, vMix…), which already streams the meeting. It also sends the audio to SentraCaptions over RTMP or SRT, using the meeting's stream key.
  2. CivicCA starts captioning when the meeting begins, pauses it for recess and closed session, and closes it at adjournment, through the SentraCaptions API. Its dais control screen shows whether captions are live, paused or ended.
  3. Speech to text: AI speech recognition turns speech into text in about a second.
  4. Accuracy: local names from the glossary, autocorrect rules, and, when turned on, a few seconds of human review.
  5. Translation: into up to 8 of 75 languages per meeting.
  6. Live captions go to the chamber screen (CivicCA's dais display or ours), residents' phones by QR code, the agency website (CivicCA's portal or our JavaScript box), Zoom closed captions, YouTube Live and transcript files.
  7. Webhooks tell CivicCA when a meeting starts, pauses and ends; at the end they include links to the transcripts, which CivicCA keeps with the meeting record.
  8. The SentraCaptions control center monitors every meeting, tracks costs, and emails our team if anything fails.

Features

Built for city halls

Made for the way public meetings actually run: long sessions, public comment in more than one language, and a clerk who has no time for another system.

  • Chamber screen

    A full-screen caption display for the TV in the chamber, with one, two or more languages side by side and your meeting's title.

    TV · One or more languages

  • Captions on any phone

    Residents scan the QR code on the screen and read along in their own language, at their own text size. Nothing to install.

    QR code · No app

  • Your local names

    A simple glossary for council members, streets and programs, so captions and translations get them right.

    Names · Streets · Programs

  • Livestream and Zoom captions

    Send the same captions to your YouTube Live stream and into Zoom meetings, so viewers at home and on Zoom can read along too.

    YouTube Live shows one caption language per stream; translations are available on the chamber screen and phone page.

    YouTube Live · Zoom

  • Transcripts

    Every meeting's captions in each of its languages, as text or subtitle files, for the record and for the video archive.

    TXT · SRT

  • Many meetings at once

    Council, planning commission and committee rooms can run at the same time, each with its own screen and link.

    One screen per room

75 supported languages

Choose the languages for each meeting. Spanish and other languages can update live while people speak.

  • English
  • Español
  • 中文（简体）
  • 中文（繁體）
  • Tiếng Việt
  • Tagalog
  • 한국어
  • Հայերեն
  • فارسی
  • العربية
  • ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
  • Русский
  • हिन्दी
  • 日本語
  • Українська
  • Português
  • Français
  • ไทย
  • Afrikaans
  • Shqip
  • አማርኛ
  • Azərbaycan
  • বাংলা
  • Bosanski
  • Български
  • Català
  • Hrvatski
  • Čeština
  • Dansk
  • دری
  • Nederlands
  • Eesti
  • Suomi
  • Français (Canada)
  • ქართული
  • Deutsch
  • Ελληνικά
  • ગુજરાતી
  • Kreyòl ayisyen
  • Hausa
  • עברית
  • Magyar
  • Íslenska
  • Bahasa Indonesia
  • Gaeilge
  • Italiano
  • ಕನ್ನಡ
  • Қазақ
  • Latviešu
  • Lietuvių
  • Македонски
  • Bahasa Melayu
  • മലയാളം
  • Malti
  • मराठी
  • Монгол
  • Norsk
  • پښتو
  • Polski
  • Português (Portugal)
  • Română
  • Српски
  • සිංහල
  • Slovenčina
  • Slovenščina
  • Soomaali
  • Español (México)
  • Kiswahili
  • Svenska
  • தமிழ்
  • తెలుగు
  • Türkçe
  • اردو
  • Oʻzbek
  • Cymraeg

Integration

Works natively with CivicCA

SentraCaptions is built to work with CivicCA agenda management. CivicCA starts and pauses captioning for you as the meeting runs, and shows the captions on the CivicCA dais display, the public portal and residents' phones.

How the integration works Visit civicca.com
  • Starts and pauses itself

    CivicCA starts captioning when the meeting begins and pauses it for recess and closed session, so you only use minutes while the meeting is in session.

  • Same screens

    Captions and translations appear on the CivicCA dais display and public portal.

  • One team

    From the people who build CivicCA, with one point of contact for both.

For developers

Add live captions to your platform

Agenda, streaming and meeting-management platforms can add live captions through one API. Create a meeting, point the encoder at its stream key, and read the captions as JSON.

  • One API key per platform; each meeting has its own stream key, screen and phone links
  • Pause and resume for recess and closed session
  • Ready-made chamber screen and phone pages you can embed
  • A webhook when each meeting ends, with transcripts and usage
  • JSON
  • Server-Sent Events
  • TXT
  • SRT

Read the API overview 

POST /v1/meetings
Authorization: Bearer sk_XXXX

{ "title": "City Council Regular Meeting",
  "languages": ["es", "zh", "vi"],
  "externalId": "agenda-2291" }

# 201 Created
{ "id": "m_XXXX",
  "state": "created",
  "ingest": { "rtmps": {
    "server": "rtmps://ingest.sentracaptions.com:1936",
    "streamKey": "m_XXXX?key=XXXX" } },
  "links": {
    "stream":  "…/v1/rooms/m_XXXX/stream?token=XXXX",
    "display": "…/display?room=m_XXXX&token=XXXX",
    "phone":   "…/live?room=m_XXXX&token=XXXX" } }

From the blog

Guides for accessible public meetings

SB 707, the ADA Title II web rule, and practical setup guides for clerks and IT staff.

All articles

Computer Systems Plus

Part of the CSP public-sector family

SentraCaptions is built and supported in Fresno by Computer Systems Plus, a family-owned company serving California public agencies since 1990, alongside CivicCA, Sentra 311, SentraCheck, GOVvpat and SentraDeed.