Professional captioners will always pursue providing captions on the latest platforms and releases. The coronavirus pandemic caught many industries off guard, yet captioners took advantage of our remote experiences, promoting captions as work-from-home mandates were issued and rose to the occasion. Many captioners report a work increase of 20 percent since March 2020.
However, trying to keep up with updates on platforms is a never-ending challenge. NCRA is striving to provide information on the latest updates to platforms so that all members can stay one step ahead on the technology.
Microsoft Teams recently updated its platform to allow for live captions. The instructions on how to embed captions can be found here.
Once the captioner has the link, they can paste it into their preferred caption-delivery platform, such as StreamText or 1CapApp, and the captions will flow both on that platform and on the Teams platform.
Corporate America continues to pursue the best-in-class for their business reputations, and that puts professional captioners in the spotlight. When a direct client calls or when you are contracting for a third party, be prepared and armed with knowledge. Anyone can turn on automatic captions. Captions are a free commodity due to the increased prevalence of artificial intelligence, yet NCRA-certified caption providers, such as those who have earned the prestigious Certified Realtime Captioner (CRC) designation, are the gold standard and provide a level of accuracy and professionalism that will lead consumers to demand professional captioners in their accommodations and to represent their brands. We are all in this together!
Becky Tallarico, RPR, CRR, CRC, and Carol Studenmund, FAPR, RDR, CRR, CRC, who are members of NCRA’s Captioning Committee, contributed to this article. Questions for the Captioning Committee can be addressed to jmoore@ncra.org.
