Frequently Asked Questions

1. What Is Live Captioning and How Does It Work?

In performing our work, we hear for others. We write the words we hear in a special type of shorthand (or steno) on our shorthand machines. The machine is connected to a laptop computer, and translation software then matches our personalized steno dictionaries to their English equivalent. The English translation appears on the screen, usually with a delay of only 3/4 of a second.

The accuracy rate is extremely high. In our daily work, we often write at speeds up to 300 words per minute and accuracy rates very near 100%.

The steno is based on a system of phonetics. In order to attain the speeds at which we write, a regular QWERTY keyboard will not suffice. We do not “type,” we write steno. We stroke word for word, and not letter by letter. It is analogous to stroking chords on a piano, achieving the writing of an entire word or phrase with a single chord stroke. It requires very quick reflexes, full concentration, and ear-brain-hand-eye coordination. 

2. How do you know how to spell all that jargon? How do you understand those accents? And why does White Coat Captioning specialise in tech and medical captioning?

As stenographers, words are our business. We are word nerds. We love words! 

Some of us, though, love technical and medical words more than others. In addition, some captioners are more adept and skilled with accents than others. Some perfectly great captioners who can handle legal lingo or TV sports verbiage just fine, for example, just don’t perform as well with technical and medical jargon. 

At White Coat, we remain focused and have built a reputation for excellence in two fields: technical conference and medical school/conference captioning. We have years and years of day-in-and-day-out experience in captioning technical conferences and medical, veterinary and dental school classes. We have attended scores of technical conferences and been through medical school many times. 

We specialise in these topics because we love them, we are good at them, they are challenging, and they are difficult enough that we believe they require specialisation.

3. Do you provide transcripts at the conclusion of your event?

Our pricing model includes lightly edited txt files, close to the way they came out in real time, not 100% perfect verbatim transcripts. We upload the files in a Google Drive folder that we will set up and share with you. You will be responsible for additional edits from that point.

4. Do you provide SRT files?

No. This is post-production work that we do not do. There are several companies that do this kind of work. However, you can create your own SRT files by uploading our txt files to your YouTube video (instructions [link] here) and then download the SRT file, using YouTube as an intermediary to get the timing approximately right. YouTube’s algorithm is quite good at matching the spoken words of the speaker with the text of our files to get the timing right, but it’s not perfect. Some tweaking will be necessary.

5. Do you transcribe videos?

We may be able to transcribe short videos or audio files related to your project by special arrangement, but this is not a usual part of our business.

Contact admin@whitecoatcaptioning.com for pricing and turnaround times.

6. Do you caption on our livestream, if we have one, as well as in the venue?

Yes. This requires additional planning and additional staffing. Please contact admin@whitecoatcaptioning.com for pricing information, as well as technical and AV needs to service the livestream.

7. How much of a delay is there in receiving the captions remotely?

We use a streaming technology that is specifically designed for this purpose and has no buffer. This is superior to using a screenshare technology, for example, which only refreshes every so many seconds. Our captioners use the highest-speed internet available, and if your internet is robust, there should be only a tiny delay. (Less than a second in most cases.) On your end, if you have slow, overburdened, or unreliable internet, performance will be negatively affected. (Captions can freeze, have large delays, or come out in spurts rather than provide a smooth streaming experience.) Typical conference wifi is often overburdened and venues tend to oversell their internet capabilities. Please ensure that your internet (preferably ethernet, not wifi) has sufficient bandwidth for best results.

8. What are the pros and cons of onsite versus remote captioning?

The best result is usually obtained when the captioners are onsite, working side by side with your AV and production teams, and are a part of the action. Tech setup and testing can be done organically, without one side or the other wondering what their counterpart is doing in sometimes long periods of silence. There is a pleasant camaraderie when people are working side by side, and the captioners can be a part of the culture, as well as being able to see the slides, thereby doing an even better job. Troubleshooting can be done immediately, without time zones, distance, and the internet between the teams.

However, sometimes budgets will not support having the captioners onsite*, there may not be space for them, the distance is too far to reasonably travel, or there are not captioners available to travel to your location. In these instances, remote captioning with our outstanding captioners is a great option. We’ve successfully done remote captioning everywhere from Australia to India to France to Germany to California, and everywhere in between — in short, all around the globe. We regularly receive rave reviews and audiences are often in disbelief that we are not onsite.

*Bear in mind that what you might save on one side by not having the captioners onsite, you might have to spend on extra AV needs to support remote captioning, so the savings might not be as great as they at first appear, and in the long run, it might be a more economical option to have us onsite.

9. What do we need to provide for remote captioning?

We will be happy to discuss our needs with you once we know more details about your event.

10. We haven’t had any requests for captioning, and it’s rather expensive. Why should we offer it for our conference?

You should offer captioning because everyone benefits. Most people – and even many deaf and hard-of-hearing attendees – don’t know this service exists or that they are entitled to request it. But the vast majority of our clients use captioning not just for the deaf or hard of hearing. They use it because large portions of their audiences are multi-cultural and non-native English speakers. The international “official” language of conferences is English, and your audience and speakership is made up of speakers of many languages, many with accents. It is much easier for a learner of English to read English than it is to hear it at high speeds, dense material, and delivered (or heard!) with accents. Captioning revolutionizes conferences and makes it a more friction-free experience for all.

11. How do we justify the cost of captioning?

You have worked hard to set up this conference and you want it to be the best it can be. There is a lot of important information to impart. But what if you are losing 60% of your audience because they can’t understand most — or even some — of what is being said?

For a single-track conference with an audience of 500 attendees, the cost of captioning is minimal per attendee – approximately the cost of a large latte! Ask your team, and maybe even ask your attendees: Are you willing to contribute the cost of a cup of coffee so that everyone can have better access to the content? For a bigger conference, of course, the cost per attendee goes down even further.

12. Our budget is tight, but we are committed to accessibility. How do we pay for quality captioning?

We have ample experience with this dilemma. If you are serious about accessibility, prioritize budgeting for captioning. Feel free to contact us to talk about this for ideas how to manage it.

13. Do you offer ASL, BSL, or language interpreters?

No. We are a specialist captioning firm. We provide only the finest captioners and we focus on one thing: captioning and captioning well. If you are looking for a one-stop-shop, chances are very good that the companies you find do not perform any of the many things they claim to do well. Companies such as this are best avoided in general, but particularly with regard to captioning, if live captioning is not the FIRST thing on their website, they are more than likely posing as a captioning firm in order to get whatever sliver of the business they can. Be extremely cautious when thinking of hiring these firms, and get recommendations when you can.

14. Is your captioning HIPAA compliant? 

Yes. As per FCC Notice DA 04-1716 released on June 16, 2004,  “We therefore emphasize that all forms of TRS, including “traditional” TTY based relay, Internet Protocol (IP) Relay, Video Relay Service (VRS), and Speech-to-Speech (STS), can be used to facilitate calls between health care professionals and patients without violating HIPPA’s Privacy Rule. For further information on this issue see HHS’s FAQ sheet which is available at www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa or on the FCC’s Disability Rights Office’s website at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/trs.html and read this pdf.