Many residents follow public meetings from your agency's own website. SentraCaptions lets you put live captions, with a language picker, right on that page using a script tag and a div, with no iframe.
Why put captions on your own site
Your website is often where residents look first for meeting information. Under SB 707, eligible legislative bodies need a dedicated public meetings webpage linked from the home page, with an explanation of the process, comment instructions, a calendar and agendas. That page is a natural place for live captions too.
Accessibility is another reason. The ADA Title II web rule from DOJ (April 2024) requires state and local government web content and mobile apps to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. In April 2026, DOJ extended the compliance dates by one year: April 26, 2027 for public entities with a population of 50,000 or more, and April 26, 2028 for smaller entities and special districts. The extension doesn't change the standard, and the ADA's general obligations still apply.
WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4, Captions (Live), at Level AA, calls for captions for live audio content in synchronized media. Live captions on your meeting page help you work toward that. The rule has exceptions, so check with your city attorney or county counsel about how it applies to your site. Our article on WCAG live captions covers the basics.
Two ways to add captions
The drop-in caption box
For most agencies, the simplest option is the SentraCaptions JavaScript library. Your web team adds a script tag and a div to the page. The result is an accessible live caption box with a language picker, placed directly on your page.
Because it is not an iframe, the box can be styled to match your website: your fonts, your colors, your layout. Residents see it as part of your site.
Caption events for developers
If your web team or platform vendor wants full control, developers can use the caption events directly and build their own display. The SentraCaptions API lets platforms read captions as JSON or Server-Sent Events. The developers page has more detail, and we send the full API reference with API access.
What you need before you start
- A meeting in SentraCaptions. Your agency adds SentraCaptions as one more destination on the encoder it already streams with, such as Pearl, OBS or vMix, over RTMP or SRT. No new hardware.
- The meeting's view token. The caption box uses the meeting's view token only.
- Someone who can edit the page. This might be your IT staff, your web team or your website vendor.
- Your language choices. Captions and live translation are available in 75 languages, up to 8 per meeting. The languages you choose for the meeting are the ones residents can pick from.
Setting it up
- Add the script tag. It loads the library from https://api.sentracaptions.com/sdk/v1/captions.js.
- Add a div where the captions should appear. A good spot is right below or beside your meeting video player.
- Connect it to the meeting. Your web team sets up the box with the meeting's view token, following the instructions on the developers page.
- Style it. Use your site's own CSS so the box matches the rest of the page.
- Test before a real meeting. Run a short test stream, open the page on a computer and a phone, and try switching languages.
Once it is set up, captions appear about a second after speech, and the sentence in progress updates live, the same as on the chamber screen and the phone page.
Security and good practices
The caption box needs only the meeting's view token. Your account credentials do not go on your public web page. See our security page for more.
A few practices help residents get the most from captions on your site:
- Keep the automatic-caption notice visible. SentraCaptions labels captions as automatic and notes that they may contain errors. Residents should know that.
- Explain pauses. When staff pause captioning for recess or closed session, nothing is captioned, translated, stored or billed, and screens show "Paused". A short note on the page saying captions pause during recess and closed session avoids confusion.
- Mention the phone option. Residents in the chamber can scan the QR code on the chamber screen and read along on their phones in their own language, at their own text size. No app, no sign-in. See captions on residents' phones.
- Know how YouTube fits. If you also stream on YouTube Live, captions in one language can go into the YouTube stream. Translations are on your site, the chamber screen and the phone page. See YouTube Live captions for meetings.
- Post recordings with subtitles. After the meeting, transcripts are available in every language as TXT or SRT files. WCAG success criterion 1.2.2, Captions (Prerecorded), at Level A, covers captions for prerecorded video such as posted meeting recordings. See subtitles for recorded meeting videos.
Captions on your website are one part of accessibility. For a deaf resident who requests CART as an accommodation, your agency should consider that request. See machine captions vs CART.
Learn more
- Developers: the JavaScript library and API
- Integrations
- Features
- ADA Title II and live captions: the deadlines
- Encoder setup with RTMP or SRT
- Contact us to set up a test meeting