Google Meet adds caption support to video recordings
Since their resurgence as prominent everyday tools following the pandemic’s onset, video conferencing utilities have improved greatly. Some of thebest video calling appshave led the charge with regular feature additions, bug fixes, and accessibility improvements. Case in point,Google Meethas added in-meetinglive translated captionsto help bridge language barriers, distances, and disabilities. Now, Google is making this feature even better by including captions in meeting recordings.
People with hearing disabilities like partial or complete deafness usually rely on subtitles for movies, and Google introducedreal-time auto-generated subtitlesfor Meet calls in the US in mid-2021 to help on this front. Now, when hosts or co-hosts record a meeting, they alsocan enable captionsfor the recording — provided the Google Workspace account supports recording, of course. Teachers and co-teachers will also see this option now if they started the Meet session through Google Classroom.
Google Meet’s new option to caption recordings will be made available to meeting hosts with eligible Workspace accounts
This nifty little addition will save hearing-impaired participants the hassle of attending meetings at inconvenient times, or using a third-party speech-to-text utility to watch and understand Meet recordings. Disappointingly, controls for recording captions are only available to hosts of the call, so they would have to be cognizant of the needs of their attendees when setting up the Meet session. The hosts will also have to share the captioned recording, which is saved in their Google Drive as an MP4 file in a folder labeled “Meet Recordings.”
The feature has started showing up for some users already, but don’t be alarmed if you’re not seeing it when starting a Meet recording — Google says the rollout will be complete by March 15. Since this is an accessibility feature, Google has made it available to all accounts with native permission to record meetings. If your organization doesn’t take advantage of this new option, however, you canenable Android’s Live Transcribe featureorChrome’s Live Captionsto get similar transcriptions while watching Meet recordings.
The note-taking app I should have used all along
Broader branding hints at wider paid-tier ambitions
I found the only AI photo app worth keeping on my phone
EA has confirmed the early access release date for the next game in the Skate series
It’s been a while
This article is sponsored by Total Wireless.
