Whether you need live captioning or a recorded caption/transcript depends on one question: Is the content happening right now, or has it already been recorded? These use different tools.
Live: an Event, Class Session, or Meeting Happening in Real Time
- Zoom’s built-in live captions — Free and automatic for UCLA Zoom meetings and classes. Good for everyday meetings and lectures; accuracy varies with audio quality and accents.
- Live captioning for an event with an audience (a public event, webinar, or large meeting where accuracy matters) — Contact the Disabilities & Computing Program to arrange professional real-time captioning (CART) or an ASL interpreter. Book with lead time.
Recorded: a Lecture Recording, Video, or Podcast that Already Exists
- Kaltura auto-captions — Recordings hosted through Bruin Learn/Kaltura get automatic captions. Auto-captions alone usually aren’t accurate enough to meet WCAG 2.1 AA — review and correct them before publishing, especially for anything graded or high-stakes.
- 3Play Media — UCLA’s contracted vendor for professional captioning and transcription. Use this for public-facing, promotional, or social media video (required under the UCLA Brand Guidelines) and any recording where auto-captions aren’t accurate enough.
- Need a transcript, not just captions? 3Play Media also produces transcripts — request both when you order captioning if you need each separately
Creating Content for UCLA’s Web or Social Channels
The UCLA Brand Guidelines’ Accessibility: Audio and Video resource is for anyone producing or publishing multimedia for UCLA's web and social presence. A few things worth knowing before you go there:
Platform captioning works differently depending on where you're posting. YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo support closed captions, so you can correct auto-generated captions within those platforms; but auto-generated captions are not considered sufficient for ADA compliance on their own and must be proofread before publishing. Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn don't support closed captions at all, so open captions (burned into the video) are required for those platforms.
Professional Captioning and Transcription
If you need captioning help and don't want to do it yourself, the UC has a master service agreement with 3Play Media that any UCLA department can use. It includes discipline-specific transcriptionists, accent and technical vocabulary expertise, and Spanish captioning, with a standard three-business-day turnaround.
The page also covers transcripts, audio descriptions, and live captioning tools (including Zoom, Dynamic Captioning, and StreamText) for webcast events and conferences.
Quick Reference
Situation | Use |
|---|---|
Regular class or team meeting (live) | Zoom auto-captions |
Public event or large meeting needing high accuracy (live) | DCP-arranged CART/ASL |
Bruin Learn lecture recording | Kaltura auto-captions, reviewed and corrected |
Public-facing or social media video | 3Play Media |
Recording that needs a transcript | 3Play Media |
Still not sure what you need? Contact the Disabilities and Computing Program.
For UC-wide digital accessibility guidance, see the UCOP Standards & Best Practices.