TEDx Live Captioning Case study | Real Time Transcription

TED is a leading non-profit media organization that organizes events to enable thinkers, doers, and idea generators articulate their viewpoints on a range of topics. The speakers are given 18 minutes or less to speak on a podium in front of live audiences. An associate organization TEDx was set up to facilitate local self-organized events that would enable people to come together to share a TED-like experience, and where live speakers can discuss and connect with each other.

One of the Attendee was Hearing Impaired:

One such event was organized by TEDxTarrytown in New York. Amongst the visitors, it included an attendee who was hearing impaired. The organizers had to make special arrangements to caption the live videos that would be on air. As the day of the event was fast approaching, TEDx’s local representative Ms. Kimberly Marcus called CaptionStar, wondering if we had the ability to organize our captioning staff at short notice. Ms. Kimberly explained she had tried calling other captioning companies, while some were exorbitantly too expensive, others she said needed a longer TAT to get started.

Looking for ‘budgeted’ service:

Being a non-profit organization, they were looking for a company that was economically priced and had the ability to provide them real-time onsite captioning.  CaptionStar, according to her fitted her budget, and with a front desk that was warm and friendly, Ms. Kimberly went ahead and completed the formalities that got us started.

Setting Up Tools for Real-Time Captioning:

We mobilized our captioning staff and set up the necessary tools that would deliver real-time/live captions, and allow easy access to the hearing impaired attendee. We set up our captioning system in a manner that would not require embedding or encoding of the feed into the platform where the video would play.

Character-for-Character Matching Captions:

On the day of the event, as our captioning staff was transcribing the real-time live audio sent via phone call, the captioning text was displayed on the page of the audience’s cell phone web browsers. Thanks to our captioning writer, we were able to match character for character, while the video was streaming, there was no lag or delay

Setup Charges Waiver with a Special Discount:

Being a non-profit organization, as a special gesture Captioning Star offered to waiver setup charges and gave them a special discount of 12.5%.

Ms. Kimberly Marcus was absolutely delighted with the end result, she complimented CaptioningStar for the rewarding event experience, stating

“Everything worked flawlessly on the day of the event, the staff was professional, calm and courteous. I highly recommend working with CaptioningStar. You will be extremely satisfied you did”

–Kimberly Marcus, TEDx, Tarrytown Organizer

Not just with the above note, but she has included our brand on her website, referred us to her AV teams and introduced us to TED Team too.

To Kimberly Marcus:

We take this opportunity to thank you for your wonderful support during the Live Captioning process. You are one of the best clients ever since we started offering this Live Captioning Service. Thanks a ton, Kim, for using our service.  We would love to work with you once again.

If you are a member of a TEDx chapter and would like to know more about our live captioning service, please drop an email to info@captioningstar.com. Because TEDx members can avail a flat 20% discount.