Order live captions for scheduled events via KMC

Last Modified on 04/08/2026 8:30 pm IDT

About

You can order machine-generated live captions for your events using Kaltura REACH. Once enabled, captions can be added to any scheduled event from the KMC, Video Portal, or Events platform.

If the live captions option is not available to you, please contact your Kaltura representative to have it enabled on your account.

Access the Captions & enrichment services page

  1. Log into your KMC.
    2. The Entries page displays.
  2. Locate the webcasting entry and click the three dots menu to the right.
  3. Select Captions & Enrich.

  4. The Captions & Enrich page displays.

Order live captions

1. Complete the following fields:

  • Service - Select Machine
  • Source media language - Select the spoken language

    • Multiple languages are supported. Don’t see yours? Contact your Kaltura rep to request it.

  • Feature - Select Live Captions
  • Live captions start time - Choose when captioning should start:
    • at the beginning of the event
    • 15 minutes before the event starts (recommended)
    • 30 minutes before the event starts
    • 60 minutes before the event starts
  • Live captions end time - Choose how long captions should continue after the scheduled end time:
    • at the end of the event
    • 15 minutes after the event ends 
    • 30 minutes after the event ends
    • 60 minutes after the event ends

To avoid disconnects, schedule captions to start slightly before your event, and place the order at least 5 minutes in advance.

2. Click Submit at the bottom right.

To return to the order summary, click Back.

If you reschedule the event, the original order won't update automatically. Cancel it and place a new order.

Status definitions

  • Pending - The request hasn’t been opened yet
  • Scheduled - The request has been accepted and is being processed
  • Completed - The captioning job was completed successfully 

Start streaming only when all caption orders show Scheduled. If the status is Pending, wait and refresh the list.

Best practices for live captioning

  • Start streaming a few minutes early to ensure full caption coverage.
  • Order machine captions at least 15 minutes before the event
  • You can cancel machine orders anytime before the event. 
  • Captions apply to the primary stream only - backup streams aren’t supported.
  • Events must be at least 10 minutes long (600 seconds minimum).
  • Captions can run up to 8 hours per session.

Ingest captions from your own encoder

Kaltura also supports live captions carried over the ingested stream using the CEA/EIA-608 and CEA/EIA-708 standards (also known as embedded captions).

  • Live captions using onTextData or onCaptionData from your encoder aren’t supported.
  • Do not combine REACH captions and ingested captions. If both are used, the ingested captions will be removed.
  1. In KMC, go to the Captions tab of your event entry.
  2. Choose User ingested captions.
  3. (Optional) If using special characters, switch on CAE-708.
  4. For each track:
    • Select CAE-608 or CAE-708 protocol.
    • Choose a language.
    • (Optional) Customize the track label.
    • Remove unnecessary tracks using the red 'minus' button
  5. Don’t forget to save before leaving the tab.
Captions tab in KMC

When configuring your encoder, annotate each caption track with the correct language so it appears properly in the player’s captions selector.

Advanced configuration

Display embedded captions in the live player

For Asian language character sets with CEA/EIA-708 captions, set the extract_closed_captions_feature admin tag.

This tag does not support backup stream captions, and should not be used with REACH captions.

Set up captions to display correctly in session recordings

To display captions correctly in session recordings, use the correct container IDs:

  • CEA/EIA-608: CC1 to CC4 (use CAPITAL letters for container ids)

    • Examples

    • id=CC1 language=eng label=english type=closedCaptions
    • id=CC2 language=ger label=german type=closedCaptions
  • CEA/EIA-708: SERVICE1 to SERVICE63 (use CAPITAL letters for container ids)

    • Examples

    •  id=SERVICE1 language=jpn label=japanese type=closedCaptions
    • id=SERVICE2 language=chi label=chinese type=closedCaptions 
  • You can use both CC (608) and SERVICE (708) containers in the same session as long as each has a unique container ID.

    • Examples

    • id=CC1 language=eng label=english type=closedCaptions 
    • id=CC2 language=ger label=german type=closedCaptions
    • id=SERVICE3 language=jpn label=japanese type=closedCaptions
    • id=SERVICE4 language=chi label=chinese type=closedCaptions

    See Kaltura VPaaS API Documentation for further details about Kaltura's API.

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