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Guide

Live subtitles for your church livestream

Adding live translated subtitles to your church livestream makes your services accessible to international viewers and diaspora members who can't attend in person. Here's how to do it across the main platforms.

Option 1 — Burn-in captions via OBS (most flexible)

Using Voco's OBS browser source, you can overlay live translated captions onto your video feed before it's streamed to YouTube, Facebook Live, or Zoom. The captions are 'burned in' — visible to all viewers on all platforms without any platform-specific configuration. This works for every streaming platform simultaneously and gives you full visual control over caption style and position.

Option 2 — YouTube live captions

YouTube supports 'auto-generated captions' for live streams in English, but these aren't translation — they're transcription only. For translated captions on YouTube Live, the most reliable method is burning them in via OBS before they reach YouTube.

Option 3 — Zoom Language Interpretation

Zoom has a built-in language interpretation feature for meetings with 500+ participants (Webinar plan). It allows designated human interpreters to provide a separate audio channel. This is designed for human interpreters, not AI translation — it's worth knowing about for large hybrid events where you already have interpreters.

What about international viewers?

For diaspora members watching your Sunday service from their home country, live translated captions can mean participating fully in worship rather than just watching a service they can't follow. The burn-in approach works for YouTube and Facebook Live simultaneously — one setup serves your entire international community.

Frequently asked questions

Can I add translated subtitles to a YouTube livestream?

The most reliable method is burning captions into the video signal via OBS before it reaches YouTube — this way captions appear for all viewers without any YouTube configuration. Voco's OBS browser source makes this straightforward.

Do Facebook Live and YouTube Live support external caption streams?

Facebook and YouTube have limited support for external caption streams (via WebVTT or RTMP embeds) — it's technically possible but complex. Burning captions in via OBS is simpler and more reliable for most churches.

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