Frequently asked questions

BabelStreamer listens to your speech and generates live, translated captions your viewers can read in their own language — no manual typing, no delay-heavy overlays. Speech recognition is done locally on your system allowing you to customise it. The heavy duty work of translation and caption distribution is handed off to our servers.

Yes, although it would be more accurate to say that the translation latency is about the same as your streaming latency, so that to the viewer it looks like zero latency. This is achieved by serving subtitles on a separate link which runs parallel to your stream. In fact the latency of Twitch and YouTube on mobile devices is so large that we have to slow down delivery of captions to avoid them arriving way too soon.

No. Twitch has no built-in live-captioning system at all — captions only appear if a streamer feeds them in through a plugin or overlay. YouTube does auto-caption live streams, but only as same-language transcription; it doesn't translate into a language the viewer understands. See the alternatives comparison for the full breakdown.

Your viewers can choose any of the languages you have selected in your subscription. Available languages are English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Tagalog, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Italian and Chinese

Create a streamer account, install the OBS plugin, and add it as a filter on your audio source. Download a translation model and link the session to your account. See the OBS plugin manual for the full walkthrough.

See the pricing page for current plans, or contact info@babelstreamer.com for something custom.

Yes. You set your source language once, and BabelStreamer translates it into whichever target languages your viewers select on their end. Currently English, French, German and Spanish speech is recognised. You can choose your speech language in the filter control panel.

Install the browser extension for your browser, then click its icon while watching a stream, enter the session key the streamer shared, and pick the language you want captions in. See the step-by-step guide for the full walkthrough.

No. Viewers don't need an account — just install the extension and select your language.

Yes, watching translated captions as a viewer is free. Any limits or paid plans apply to the streamer's account, not yours.

Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox. Grab the right build for your browser from the downloads section.

Make sure the extension is enabled for the current tab and that the streamer is actively running BabelStreamer. Not every stream has it turned on. If it still doesn't work, reach out to info@babelstreamer.com.