About
Kaltura’s captioning and enrichment services, powered by the Reach framework, cover a wide range of accessibility and content enhancement options, from captions and translations to advanced enrichment features.
By improving accessibility and inclusivity, Reach helps everyone engage with video content, whether for better understanding, watching on mute, or consuming media in another language.
To set up Reach on your account, contact your Kaltura representative.
Benefits of Reach
✔ Easy management and control - One centralized services dashboard allows you to easily manage your budget and track requests. Visit our article Moderating Services Requests and General Statistics for more information.
✔ Customizable and automated processes - Reach includes a full end-to-end process for caption ordering and return. Ordering rules, moderation, flexible permissions and so on can be tailored to your needs. See Reach Profiles and Services for more information.
✔ Unified solution - The workflow is the same across all Kaltura's applications, so it doesn't matter whether your in MediaSpace, the KMC or one of our LMS Video integrations. Also the experience and flow is the same whether your video was created in Kaltura or not - once it's uploaded, your video benefits from the same ease of use of our captions editor and automatic transcript widget.
✔ Reports - You have the option to obtain usage and billing reports, and you can also download the relevant information.
✔ Compliance with security and privacy - Customers can request that the service provider delete their content once the captions have been completed, or alternatively, they can specify a desired timeframe during which the content will be retained before deletion.
✔ DPA (Data processing agreement) & GDPR compliant.
To learn about Kaltura’s approach to responsible AI, see Kaltura’s Artificial Intelligence Principles.
Services
Kaltura's Reach services include:
- Captions (machine and human)
- Translations
- Live captions & translations
- Audio description
- Extended audio description
- Chaptering
- Alignment
- Dubbing
- Transcript widget
Captions
Machine (ASR) - This AI-based service provides quick, searchable video transcripts with an average 85% accuracy and a turnaround time of up to two hours. Users can edit the transcript and resubmit for alignment. The engine improves over time, and custom vocabularies can be added for industry-specific terms. Recommended primarily for search and discovery, not as on-player captions.
Top use cases for machine captioning:
- Immediate transcripts needed within minutes of upload (for example, call centers)
- Consistent speakers, such as university faculty
- Language with specialized terms, idioms, or domain-specific vocabulary
- Clear speaker audio without background noise
Please note that captions are not the same as translations (subtitles). They provide text for the spoken dialogue in the same language as the video.
Professional - This is a service that leverages professional human transcribers to provide full-service captioning with 99% accuracy. Additionally, the captions will be fully compliant with the high standard Closed Captions laws, as well as media publishing expectations. Turnaround time varies from 3 hours to 48 hours to 'best effort'. It's recommended to use this service for your public-facing, external videos, including marketing, learning, and training.
Top use cases for professional captioning:
- Accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Support for reading and literacy challenges
- Expanding reach to multilingual viewers
- Interactive transcript experience
- Closed captions for TV and media compliance
See Order captions in Video Portal or Order captions in KMC for ordering information.
You can resubmit Reach orders in certain cases, such as for updated media content or new profile settings. For details on how and when to use the resubmissions feature, see our article Resubmissions for Kaltura captioning & enrichment services.
Translations
You have three ways to get translations with Reach:
Option 1: Automatic translation - Reach will automatically create subtitles in another language based on your video’s audio. Good for when you want a quick, simple translation and don’t need perfect word-for-word accuracy.
Option 2: Upload your own captions file and have it translated - If you already have a captions file, you can upload it and Reach will translate it into another language. Your file must be at least 99% accurate for the translation to be reliable. Accepted file types: SRT, DFXP, or XML.
Option 3: Order professional captions first, then translate - If you want the best accuracy, use Reach to create professional, human-made captions, then translate that file into another language.
Please note that these ways can’t be used at the same time.
See Order translations in Video Portal or Order translations in KMC for ordering information.
You can resubmit Reach orders in certain cases, such as for updated media content or new profile settings. For details on how and when to use the resubmissions feature, see our article Resubmissions for Kaltura captioning & enrichment services.
Live captions & translations
Kaltura REACH supports live captions and live translations, delivered through our machine-generated captioning and translation engines.
- Live captions display the spoken content in the same language as the speaker.
- Live translations display subtitles in a different language from the spoken content.
These services can be added to scheduled live events using the Events platform, Video Portal, or KMC.
See Order live captions & live translations in Video Portal or Order live captions & live translations in KMC for ordering information.
Standard audio description
Also known simply as 'audio description', this service combines the original video audio with spoken narration of key visual details such as actions, text, and scenes. It’s ideal for videos with natural pauses or minimal dialogue. Available in English. The turnaround time depends on your account plan.
See Order audio description in Video Portal or Order audio description in KMC for ordering information.
Extended audio description
Also known as 'advanced audio description', this service pauses the video as needed to allow for more detailed narration, then resumes playback. This process may occur multiple times throughout the video. It is best suited for videos with dense visual content or limited natural pauses.
Extended audio description uses speech synthesis to generate narration from a time-coded VTT file. Speech Synthesis is supported by most browsers. You can check your browser compatibility of speech synthesis API at lambdatest.com.
It requires the extended audio description plugin in the Kaltura player and must be enabled on your account (contact your CSM).
See Order extended audio description in Video Portal or Order extended audio description in KMC for ordering information.
For setup instructions, see Extended audio description plugin.
Chaptering
This is an AI-based video service that creates chapters for a video. The chapters are reviewed by professionals and added as content metadata, just like creating manual chapters. The service is available in English only; the turnaround time is 24 hours.
See Order chaptering in Video Portal or Order chaptering in KMC for ordering information.
Alignment
The Alignment service lets you upload a transcript file, and the system will automatically sync - or “align” - the text to the audio in your video.
See Order alignment in Video Portal or Order alignment in KMC for ordering information.
Dubbing
Dubbing lets you add translated audio to your video using either machine-based or human-based services. In both cases, the final audio is generated using text-to-speech technology and synced to the original dialogue.
See Order dubbing in Video Portal or Order dubbing in KMC for ordering information.
Transcript in the player
You can view and follow the video transcript directly in the player by opening the transcript panel. The transcript displays alongside the video during playback.
In transcript playback mode, you can jump to a specific point in the video by selecting the relevant text or navigating forward and backward within the transcript.
See Transcript plugin for more information.
FAQs
What languages can I order captions in?
Supported languages depend on the selected Reach vendor. Please contact your Kaltura representative for more information.
Do I have to pay separately for each language or are the non-English package(s) all-inclusive?
To determine pricing for captioning your media in more than one additional language, please contact your Kaltura representative.
Can I edit captions I uploaded (not generated by REACH)?
Yes. Kaltura's caption editor supports all captions, created by Reach or uploaded by the customer.
What are credits?
Credits are dollars (or the name of your local currency). Credit is set in your Reach profile and every customer can have one or many profiles.
If I want English and non-English services, do I need to purchase more than one package?
For information on pricing and packages for both English and Non-English captioning and language services, please contact your Kaltura representative.
Why should I caption my media?
Kaltura REACH captions give you a complete textual database of your video library. The index, caption, and transcript data created for your media extends audience reach and enables your content to be searchable.
How do I enable Reach?
Your Kaltura representative will enable Reach on your account, after which your administrator can enable and configure the module. For assistance with setup, please contact your Kaltura representative.
