SentraCaptions and CivicCA are both made by Computer Systems Plus, Inc. (CSP), a family-owned company in Fresno that has served California public agencies since 1990. This article explains how live captions work alongside CivicCA's agendas, meetings and minutes tools.
Two products, one meeting
CivicCA handles agendas, meetings and minutes for boards. SentraCaptions provides live captions and live translation for public meetings: council, board of supervisors, planning commission and committee meetings.
Used together, the goal is simple: fewer separate steps for the clerk on meeting day, and captions that show up where residents already look.
During the meeting
Captions that follow the meeting
With the CivicCA integration, CivicCA starts captioning when the meeting starts. Staff don't need to open a separate tool to begin captions at the gavel.
When the body goes into recess or closed session, CivicCA pauses captioning, and it resumes when the meeting does. While captions are paused, nothing is captioned, translated, stored or billed, and the screens show "Paused." That matters for closed session in particular: what isn't meant for the public isn't captioned.
Where captions appear
With CivicCA, captions show in three places:
- The CivicCA dais display, so captions appear alongside what the body is already using in the chamber.
- The public portal, where residents already go to follow meetings.
- Residents' phones, through the SentraCaptions phone page. Residents scan a QR code and read along in their language at their own text size, with no app and no sign-in.
SentraCaptions also offers its own full-screen chamber screen for the TV in the chamber or lobby, showing one or more languages side by side with the meeting title, a clock and a QR code. Captions in one language can be sent to your YouTube Live stream as well.
Live translation
For each meeting, you choose the languages you want, up to 8, from 75 supported languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, Armenian, Persian (Farsi), Punjabi, Arabic, Hindi and Russian (see the features page for the full list). Hmong and Khmer are not supported.
YouTube shows one caption language per stream, so translations appear on the chamber screen and the phone page.
If your body is covered by SB 707, it may help to know where translation fits. SB 707 asks eligible bodies to translate agendas into applicable languages and to "reasonably assist" residents who want to translate a meeting or receive interpretation. The bill does not itself require live captions, but live translation is a practical way to support its language-access goals. Confirm with your city attorney or county counsel how SB 707 applies to your body.
After the meeting: transcripts and subtitle files
When the meeting ends, SentraCaptions provides transcripts in every language as TXT or SRT (subtitle) files.
With CivicCA, transcripts and subtitle files can go with the meeting video, so the recording residents find later has captions available.
Transcripts are not official minutes. They can help staff prepare minutes, for example to check the wording of a motion or the order of speakers, but the minutes remain the clerk's record.
Setup and cost
What stays the same
Adding captions doesn't change how you stream:
- SentraCaptions is one more destination on the encoder you already use, such as Pearl, OBS or vMix, over RTMP or SRT. No new hardware.
- Captions appear about one second after speech, and the sentence in progress updates live.
- A glossary of local names (council members, streets, neighborhoods, programs) helps captions spell them right.
- Several rooms or meetings can run at once, each with its own screen and link, which helps when a commission meets while another body is in session.
- Every screen labels the captions as automatic and says they may contain errors.
Automatic captions are a useful everyday tool, but not a substitute for every accommodation. If a deaf or hard-of-hearing resident requests CART, your agency should consider that request under the ADA's effective communication rules.
A meeting day, step by step
- Before the meeting, choose the translation languages and check the glossary for any new names on the agenda.
- Start the stream from your encoder as usual.
- When the meeting starts in CivicCA, captioning starts.
- Residents in the room read captions on the screen or scan the QR code; remote viewers use the public portal, phone page or YouTube Live.
- At recess or closed session, captioning pauses, and it resumes when the meeting does.
- After the meeting, transcripts and subtitle files are ready for staff review and to go with the video.
Pricing
There are no published price lists. Pricing is extremely competitive and quoted based on your hours of meetings and number of languages. You can buy minutes as you need them or prepay, there are no per-viewer fees and no hardware, and paused time isn't used.