Text on Tap is the streaming platform of Text on Top.
Where Text on Top is created to work on-site where the event takes place, Text on Tap allows remote viewers/participants to access the event. Examples of events are conferences, in church, at a funeral, (online) classes, (online) meetings, etc...
Online meetings by nature require a very low latency. Therefor the various solutions offered by Text on Tap are perfect to visualize the captions in real-time.
However, events that are streamed via platforms like Twitch, Wowza, Youtube, Facebook, Ustream, ... have a latency of for example 10 seconds.
This makes it harder to synchronize the captions. Additionally, these platforms offer Closed Captions in their players, allowing the users to optionally show captions.
This is a convenient feature for the viewers.
The challenge is to ingest the live-produced captions into the video stream... that's where this Text on Tap Closed Captions encoder comes into play!
However, it appeared that these embedded captions still has limitations and timing is not always perfect. For this reason we pushed it a little bit further by providing our own Text on Tap Broadcasting Service !
Text on Tap Closed Captions encoder
This Text on Tap Closed Captions encoder is a relay server that does several things:
The original video stream is delayed for 20 seconds.
It adds the synchronized captions produced by the captioners.
The final video stream is forwarded to up to 3 video streaming services.
Additionally, the server provides a low-latency video feed to the captioner(s).
Other key features are:
The Text on Tap server is hosted on a Tilaa server in Europe/Amsterdam.
We care about confidentiality! No text, in any form (no transcripts, no SRT, ...), nor the video stream is stored on the server! Of course Text on Tap does offer solutions for post production applications.
Easy to configure: Simply provide the endpoint(s) of the video streaming service(s) of your choice.
The captioner, who shall create the TAP event, shall also provide the unique URL to the Closed Captions configuration portal.
Timing of the captions can be tuned on-the-fly.
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Text on Tap Closed Captions encoder DOES NOT cost $400 per month! :-)
Text on Tap Broadcasting Service
In addition to the features above, the server does some more:
The Text on Tap Broadcasting Service uses the HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) media streaming protocol, developed by Apple.
Utilizing powerful AWS servers an endless amount of viewers can be served.
Basically streaming partners like Twitch, Wowza, Youtube, ... are no longer needed, unless you have specific needs like a live chat for example.
Easy to configure: Simply switch it on!
Several HLS output options: use your own player, use our player or embed our player into your website.
Multilingual captions.
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Text on Tap Broadcasting Service costs: I haven't decided yet :-)
This image shows how the system works. It does not cover all features as that would make the picture too hard to read.
Click to enlarge.
Demo portal
For testing purposes there is a special demo portal. You can configure it to stream to your target plaform (like Twitch, Wowza, Youtube, Facebook, Ustream, ...) and/or use the Text on Tap Broadcasting Service.
Of course you need to stream a video to this Text on Tap Closed Captions server to get things moving. In order to do so, configure your live streaming software (OBS, vMix,...) with these values:
Server URL: rtmp://livestream.text-on-tap.live/livein
Stream key: 12345678-abcd-efgh-ijkl-123456789000
All of this is explained in more detail on the portal page...
Click to enlarge.