What does MediaScribe do?

MediaScribe provides open captions, closed captions, and in-room display captions to enhance government meetings. It helps municipalities comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) requirements while keeping residents informed.

Who benefits from MediaScribe and how?

Cities benefit from staying compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), avoiding legal risk from third-party lawsuits or audits by the Department of Justice—MediaScribe helps ensure that compliance through accurate captioning.

Residents attending public meetings who have trouble seeing, hearing, prefer to consume content in another language. Both the in-room display and mobile interface helps them understand what is going on during the meeting.

IT Departments benefit from full control and peace of mind, with Windows 11 Enterprise ensuring compatibility with internal systems, minimal network bandwidth, broadcast standard workflows, and the latest security updates.

Real-World Impact in Woodbury, MN

During their first meeting using MediaScribe for in-room captioning, two regular attendees who typically have trouble hearing were able to follow the discussion more clearly by reading the caption displays—helping them stay engaged throughout the meeting.

How is MediaScribe tailored to municipalities?

MediaScribe provides tools specifically designed for government meetings and the ADA regulations around video accessibility.  It balances the need of WCAG and ADA compliance with closed captioning, with the nice-to-have of open captioning for overflow rooms, or in-room displays to help folks with hearing challenges. The user interface is purpose-built with simplicity in mind, making it easy to operate.

Can MediaScribe support multiple languages?

Yes. MediaScribe supports multilingual captioning across a variety of formats:

  • Closed captioning is available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Dutch. It meets broadcast and streaming standards, including support for older formats like CEA-608 and CEA-708 (captioning standards used in traditional television systems).
  • Open captioning, mobile captioning, and in-room captioning are delivered in real time through MediaScribe, with transcriptions that can be translated into over 75 languages/dialects—making your content accessible to a broader, multilingual audience.
  • VOD (video-on-demand) translation allows MediaScribe to translate and caption recorded content in over 75 languages/dialects. This is ideal for building accessible, multilingual online video archives.

This flexibility allows government agencies to meet ADA and WCAG compliance standards while also engaging non-English-speaking audiences across platforms.

What customization options are available?

MediaScribe is built to fit your workflows and reflect your organization’s brand. Here are the ways you can tailor the system to your needs:

  • On-Screen Branding lets you add your organization’s logo and customize the style of open captions to match your visual identity.
  • Custom Vocabulary improves captioning accuracy by allowing you to upload names, acronyms, and terms that are specific to your community or meeting topics.
  • Meeting Presets allow you to create reusable settings for different meeting types—such as City Council or Planning Commission—to save time and simplify setup.
  • Flexible Output Settings let you configure SDI (Serial Digital Interface) outputs to match your production environment, with different captioning presets for various room layouts or broadcast needs.
  • Speaker Identification allows you to designate speaker names for easy identification when downloading transcripts.

These customization features make it easy to adapt MediaScribe to your environment—whether you're live streaming, displaying captions in the room, or preparing video for on-demand viewing.

Implementation & Workflow

  • MediaScribe integrates with existing setups by connecting through SDI (Serial Digital Interface) inputs and outputs to standard AV equipment. It is typically installed in city council chambers near the audio source to ensure accurate transcription from the start.
  • MediaScribe delivers high transcription accuracy by using advanced AI (Automatic Speech Recognition), which performs best with clear audio. Accuracy can be further improved with custom vocabulary for local terms and built-in tools that make it easy to review and edit captions after a meeting.
  • MediaScribe improves community engagement by making live meeting discussions accessible to all residents, including those who are hard of hearing or speak languages other than English—supporting greater transparency and inclusivity.
  • MediaScribe supports scalability for larger municipalities by allowing additional devices and expanded cloud services for transcription, translation, and storage as your needs grow.

Can MediaScribe captions and translations also be made available on our broadcast cable channels?

Yes, all three outputs are configurable. One output can be set to closed captioning over SDI, which includes embedded caption data. MediaScribe can also use the secondary caption channel—such as CC3 or Service 2—to provide translation in a second language.

MediaScribe also records the meeting with captions--this can easily be sent to most playback servers for replay or archiving.

What's included?

With both the subscription and buyout options, MediaScribe includes a gateway appliance, 500 hours of captioning per year, 500 hours of translation per year, 1,500 hours of local media storage (equivalent to 8 terabytes), technical support, software updates and onboarding assistance.

How clients are using QR codes for accessibility

Clients typically use QR codes in a few key ways to help viewers access captions on their personal devices:

  • Printed materials provide an easy way to share QR codes by placing them on meeting agendas or flyers, often laid out on chairs in the room.
  • Common areas like lobbies and entrances are used to display QR codes alongside brief instructions, helping attendees connect to captions as they arrive.
  • In-room displays show QR codes on screen before meetings begin, giving attendees a chance to scan and connect to captioning in advance.

These simple strategies ensure that attendees can easily access mobile captions, improving accessibility and encouraging greater audience engagement.

When viewing on a personal device, can attendees choose the language they’d prefer for mobile captioning?

Yes, attendees can choose from the list of supported languages.

Do you support speaker labeling? I’d like the caption data to include the name of the speaker.

Yes, this feature is included with MediaScribe.

Do you have a built-in meeting summary tool?

We’d love to chat with you about a feature like this. Please reach out to our team.

What is the overall accuracy of the translations?

Translation accuracy depends on several factors, including audio quality, overlapping speech, accents, and dialects. Clear audio and proper mic use help ensure the best possible translations.  While accuracy can vary case by case, MediaScribe leverages industry-leading ASR models to deliver consistently high-quality results. Learn more about the models we use.