Many California agencies already stream council and board meetings to YouTube Live. This guide explains how SentraCaptions adds live captions to that stream without new hardware, and what to do about other languages.
Why captions on the stream matter
For a lot of residents, the YouTube stream is the meeting. They watch from home, at work or on a phone while they wait for their agenda item. If the stream has no captions, residents who are deaf or hard of hearing, residents in a noisy place and residents still learning English are left guessing.
There is also a standards question. The DOJ's ADA Title II web rule, published in April 2024, requires state and local government web content and mobile apps to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4, Captions (Live), is a Level AA criterion that calls for captions for all live audio content in synchronized media. 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. The rule also has exceptions, so check with your city attorney or county counsel about how it applies to your streams.
How it works with the encoder you already use
You don't need a new box in the AV closet. SentraCaptions is added as one more destination on the encoder you already stream with, such as Pearl, OBS, vMix and others, over RTMP or SRT. Your encoder keeps sending video to YouTube as it does today and also sends the meeting feed to SentraCaptions.
From there:
- Captions appear about one second after speech, and the sentence in progress updates live.
- Captions in one language are sent to your YouTube Live stream.
- The same captions, plus any translations you chose, appear on the chamber screen and on the phone page residents open with a QR code.
Every screen labels the captions as automatic and notes that they may contain errors, so viewers know what they are reading.
One caption language on YouTube, more everywhere else
YouTube shows one caption language per stream. That means you pick one language for the YouTube Live captions, which for most agencies is English, the language spoken at the dais.
That doesn't limit your language access. You can choose up to 8 translation languages per meeting 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. Those translations show on:
- The chamber screen: a full-screen caption display for the TV in the chamber or lobby, with one or more languages side by side, the meeting title, a clock and a QR code.
- The phone page: residents scan the QR code and read along in their language at their own text size. No app, no sign-in.
A simple way to explain it on your website: "English captions are on the YouTube stream. For other languages, open the live caption page on your phone." Put the link next to the stream link on your public meetings page.
A setup checklist
- Confirm your encoder. Make sure it can send to an additional RTMP or SRT destination. Most streaming encoders can.
- Add the SentraCaptions destination. Enter the stream details for the meeting as one more output alongside YouTube.
- Choose the YouTube caption language. Usually English.
- Choose translation languages for the chamber screen and phone page, up to 8 per meeting. See choosing translation languages for how to decide.
- Load your glossary. Add council member names, street names, neighborhoods and program names so captions spell them right.
- Run a test. Start a short test stream, speak at the dais microphones, and watch the captions on YouTube, the chamber screen and a phone.
- Tell the public. Add a line to the agenda and the public meetings webpage explaining where captions and translations can be found.
During and after the meeting
Recess and closed session
When the body goes into recess or closed session, pause captioning. While paused, nothing is captioned, translated, stored or billed, and the screens show "Paused". Resume when the meeting reconvenes. More detail is in pausing captions for recess and closed session.
Posted recordings
After the meeting, transcripts are available in every language as TXT or SRT files. SRT is a standard subtitle format, so staff can attach it to the posted recording. WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2, Captions (Prerecorded), is a Level A criterion that covers captions for prerecorded video such as posted meeting recordings. Uploading a subtitle file is a practical way to support it. Keep in mind that the files come from automatic captions; staff may want to review them before posting.
Does this replace the captions YouTube generates on its own?
SentraCaptions sends its own live captions to the stream, built from your meeting audio and your glossary of local names. You control the language and the glossary.
Can we run more than one meeting at once?
Yes. Several rooms or meetings can run at once, each with its own screen and link.
Do we pay per viewer?
No. There are no per-viewer fees and no hardware to buy. Pricing is based on hours of meetings and number of languages, and paused time isn't used.