Live surtitles for theatre and opera
Live surtitles for theatre and opera, generated from the stage.
LiveSubs turns what is spoken or sung on stage into realtime surtitles, with no SRT to pre-time and no cues to chase. Send the text to a surtitle projector, an LED wall, a second screen above the proscenium or straight into your AV rig over NDI, Spout and OSC.
Setup
From house lights to surtitles in four steps
Run it on the surtitle operator's laptop and route the text to whatever drives your caption display.
Pick the stage audio
Feed it the front-of-house mic mix, a dedicated stage mic or any system audio. Whatever the house hears, LiveSubs can transcribe.
Choose the caption language
Set the language spoken on stage and the surtitles are transcribed in that language in the cloud. Good for talks, panels and touring shows in different languages.
Route to your display
Send an NDI or Spout caption frame into your media server or switcher, or push the live text over OSC into your existing surtitle template.
Run the show
Press Start and the surtitles keep pace with the stage. No line-by-line cueing, no operator waiting for the next entry to fire.
Cue-free
Auto-generated, not pre-timed
File-based surtitle systems need a finished script cued to the second. LiveSubs works from the live performance.
No SRT to prepare
There is nothing to transcribe, translate or time in advance. Point it at the stage audio and surtitles appear as the words are said.
Handles the unscripted
Talks, Q&As, improv, understudy changes and ad-libs all get surtitled, because the text follows what is actually said rather than a fixed cue list.
No operator chasing cues
Nobody has to sit at a laptop firing lines in time with the performers. The surtitles track the pace of the show on their own.
Last-minute friendly
A programme change or a new speaker does not mean re-cueing a file. Set the language and go, even at short notice.
Outputs
Onto any surface in the house
Three native outputs at once, so the surtitles reach a projector, a wall or a personal screen.
Surtitle projector or LED wall
Bring a transparent caption feed in over NDI or Spout and place it above the proscenium, on a side screen or across an LED wall.
Second screen and seatback
Send the same text to a monitor at the front of the balcony, a second-language screen or a captioned-seating display for ADA and accessibility seating.
Into your AV rig over OSC
Push the live caption text into a lower-third template, a media server or show-control so the surtitles match your house look.
One source, many screens
The same live text can feed the main surtitle display and any accessibility screens at the same time, from one machine.
FAQ
Questions
How is this different from a file-based surtitle system?
Traditional surtitle software plays back a pre-prepared script that an operator cues line by line in time with the performance. LiveSubs generates the surtitles live from the stage audio, so there is no file to build, time or cue and no operator chasing entries.
Do I need to prepare an SRT or a cue list in advance?
No. That is the point of the live approach. You set the language spoken on stage, feed in the audio and surtitles are generated in realtime, which is why it suits talks, improv, panels and last-minute programme changes.
Can it show surtitles on a projector or LED wall?
Yes. LiveSubs outputs a transparent caption frame over NDI and Spout, so you can bring it into a media server, vMix, Resolume, TouchDesigner or a switcher and place it on a surtitle projector, an LED wall or a dedicated caption screen.
Can I use it for accessibility and ADA captioned seating?
Yes. Route the live text to a second screen, a captioned-seating monitor or an accessibility display so deaf and hard of hearing patrons can follow the performance. It is a common way to support accessibility and ADA seating goals at live venues.
Does it translate the show into another language?
No. LiveSubs transcribes speech into surtitles in the language being spoken or sung. It is multilingual transcription, not translation, so it captions a show in its own language rather than converting it to another.
What does it cost for a run of performances?
It is prepaid and pay per minute at $0.04/min with no subscription, so you only buy the minutes your performances need. That suits single shows, festival slots and short runs with nothing to cancel afterwards.
Related: Live captioning for events · ProPresenter live captions · Pricing
Put live surtitles above the stage
Download the app, buy the minutes your run needs, and generate surtitles from the performance itself, no SRT required.