Church and worship
Live captions for church services
Put the sermon on screen as it is spoken. LiveSubs transcribes the pulpit mic in real time and sends captions to your sanctuary display, into ProPresenter or OBS, and onto the livestream, so hard-of-hearing congregants can follow every word. One volunteer runs it, and you only pay for the minutes you use.
Setup
How to caption a church service
Install LiveSubs on the booth PC
Download and run LiveSubs on the same Windows PC that drives your projection or livestream. Add minutes with a key, no account or contract to set up.
Point it at the pulpit mic
Select your sound board feed or the pulpit microphone as the audio source, or pick a system-loopback device to caption whatever audio is already playing on the PC.
Send captions where they belong
Stream the transparent caption layer into ProPresenter or OBS over NDI or Spout, or send the raw text over OSC to your own lower-third or sanctuary display.
Position and press Start
Place the caption band on the lower third of the screen, hand it to a volunteer, and start it at the top of the service. That is the whole job for the morning.
Why churches use it
Built for the volunteer running the booth
One person, one button
No captioning specialist and no stenographer needed. A tech-team volunteer starts it before the service and stops it after, and the captions run themselves.
Fits your existing setup
Already using ProPresenter for lyrics and slides? The caption layer drops in over NDI or Spout alongside what you present today, no new display system required.
Accessibility for the room and the stream
Hard-of-hearing congregants in the pews read the sermon on the sanctuary screen, and online viewers see the same captions burned into your livestream.
No annual contract
Pay only for the minutes you actually caption. A weekly service is a handful of dollars, and you never owe anything in the weeks you do not use it.
How it fits
Sanctuary screen, ProPresenter or livestream
Onto the sanctuary screen
Composite the caption band onto your main projection so everyone in the room can read the sermon as it is preached.
Into ProPresenter
Bring the transparent caption layer into ProPresenter over NDI or Spout so captions sit under your slides and lyrics on the same output.
Into OBS for the livestream
Add the caption layer to your OBS scene so remote and hard-of-hearing viewers get captions on YouTube, Facebook or your church app.
Multilingual congregations
The transcription engine handles many languages, so a service preached in Spanish, Korean or Portuguese is captioned in that same language on screen.
FAQ
Questions
How do I add live captions to a church service?
Run LiveSubs on the PC in your tech booth, choose your pulpit mic or sound board feed as the audio source, and press Start. Enable NDI or Spout to bring the caption layer into ProPresenter or OBS, or send the text over OSC to your own display. The captions appear as a transparent band you can position on the lower third of the sanctuary screen.
Does it work with ProPresenter?
Yes. LiveSubs outputs a transparent caption layer over NDI or Spout that drops straight into ProPresenter alongside your lyrics and slides. See the ProPresenter live captions page for the exact source setup.
Do we need a trained captioner or stenographer?
No. The captions are generated automatically from the spoken audio, so any tech-team volunteer can run it. They pick the mic, press Start before the service, and stop it at the end.
Is there a subscription or annual contract?
No. You pay per minute for the audio you actually caption, with no monthly fee and no annual commitment. A weekly Sunday service costs only a few dollars, and you pay nothing in weeks you do not caption.
Can the captions appear on our livestream as well as in the room?
Yes. Because the caption layer is composited into ProPresenter or OBS, it is burned into the video your online congregation sees, and the same captions can go onto the sanctuary screen for people in the pews.
Can it caption a sermon preached in another language?
Yes. The transcription engine supports many languages and captions the sermon in the same language it is spoken. Note that this is transcription, not translation, so the on-screen captions match the language of the speaker.
Related: Live captions for ProPresenter · Download LiveSubs · Pricing
Caption this Sunday's service
Download LiveSubs, add the minutes you need, and put the sermon on screen for your whole congregation, in the room and on the stream.