German live captions and productivity tool for tv & media
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store
Everything you need to follow German tv & media
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing German speakers.
Captions anything playing in real time
- Point the phone toward the speaker and read along
- Works on any TV, laptop, tablet, or phone
- No subtitle file required — captions from the audio directly
- Faster than pre-generated subtitles for live content
Watch content in any language
- Foreign films, foreign news, foreign YouTube — all translated in real time
- They speak their language — you read in yours
- 60+ languages, no setup
- Works as content plays
Full transcript of any recording
- Upload a recording and get the complete written transcript
- For lectures, podcasts, talks, or any long-form content
- Searchable and copyable
- Any language, any format
Key points from any content
- Main ideas and takeaways from any transcript
- Useful for news, documentaries, and long-form content
- Organised into clear sections
- Works on any saved recording
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreEvery situation covered
Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.
ARD and ZDF run live news and sport that pre-generated subtitles lag behind. Point Captio AI at your TV and read the German as it is spoken, not several seconds behind the presenter.
Netflix, Disney+, and the broadcasters' streaming apps vary in subtitle quality and availability. Captio AI works as a consistent fallback for any German show or film that ships with wrong, delayed, or missing captions.
YouTube auto-captions for German are often inaccurate and most social video has none. Point Captio AI at your phone and read accurate German captions for any clip.
A foreign film, a foreign documentary, a non-German channel — much of it dubbed into German. Live Translator captions and translates in real time so anything becomes watchable as it plays.
Not every cinema showing has open captions. Hold Captio AI near the audio and read real-time German captions of the dialogue discreetly from your seat.
Most German podcasts have no transcript. Hold Captio AI near the audio or upload a recording, and read the whole episode in writing.
Most accurate and fastest models
word accuracy
independent benchmark, 2025
real-time captions
first word appears as you speak
Download for free
Download on theApp Store
Built for the content that subtitles fail
Captions any content in real time
Point the phone toward any speaker — TV, laptop, tablet, cinema screen. Captio AI captions whatever is playing, regardless of whether that platform provides subtitles.
Faster than built-in subtitles for live content
Pre-generated subtitles lag behind live TV by several seconds. Captio AI captions in real time — so you read what is being said as it is being said.
Works on any screen or device
No integration required. Point the phone toward the audio source — the same approach works for a large TV, a laptop screen, a cinema, or a phone held at arm's length.
Any language, translated in real time
For foreign-language content, switch to Live Translator. It translates as content plays — so a French film, a German documentary, or a Japanese series all become watchable.
No subtitle file needed
Captio AI captions from the audio directly. No subtitle file, no platform support, no creator requirement. If audio plays, Captio AI can caption it.
More accurate than auto-generated captions
The industry average for AI-generated subtitles is a 10–15% word error rate — roughly 1 in 10 words wrong (3Play Media). Captio AI is built for accuracy in real-world audio conditions.
Why German is hard to understand
Long compound nouns
- Whole concepts packed into one unbroken word
- German builds long compound words that stack several ideas together. On a fast news read or a drama scene, a deaf viewer who misses one syllable in the middle of a compound loses the entire term — and there is no lip to read when the camera cuts to a reaction shot.
Final devoicing
- Word endings that lose their voicing
- In German, b, d, and g become p, t, and k at the end of a word. The ending a lip-reader relies on to tell two terms apart is neutralised, and on a small screen where the face is turned away the distinction is gone entirely.
Front rounded vowels
- ü and ö look like u and o on screen
- German ü and ö are made with rounded lips and a front tongue, so they look like plain u and o from across the room. In a fast scene the vowel that changes a word is invisible on a speaker's face.
Austrian and Swiss varieties
- Vienna and Zurich do not sound like Berlin
- German-language film and TV span Germany, Austria, and — especially — Switzerland, whose German differs so sharply from the standard that even Germans need subtitles. A deaf viewer calibrated to standard German meets very different vowels from an Austrian or Swiss production.
Dubbing and mismatched lips
- Foreign content dubbed into German never matches the mouth
- Germany dubs most foreign film and TV into German, so the words a viewer hears do not match the lips on screen at all. For a deaf viewer relying on lip-reading, dubbed content is impossible — the mouth is speaking a different language from the soundtrack.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreGermany subtitles broadcast TV — and dubs almost everything foreign
Hearing loss is common across the German-speaking world: large German cohort studies put the prevalence of moderate-to-complete hearing loss at around 12.7%, and systematic reviews find overall rates of 16% to 25% of adults. Germany's accessibility law — the implementation of the European Accessibility Act — gives deaf and hard of hearing people the right to access broadcast content, and the public broadcasters subtitle a large share of their programmes.
But regulation covers broadcast, and reality outruns it. Live programming still lags, the broadcasters' streaming apps and international platforms vary in caption quality, and social and short-video content is largely uncaptioned. Above all, Germany dubs most foreign film and television into German — so a deaf viewer relying on lip-reading gets a mouth that never matches the soundtrack, with no accessible caption to fall back on.
Captio AI does not depend on the broadcaster or the platform. Point the phone at any screen — a live ARD news bulletin, a dubbed foreign series, a YouTube clip — and read German captions in real time from the audio, whether or not that content was ever captioned.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreWhat you hear stays with you.
Gone the moment it ends
Captio AI processes your audio in real time and discards it immediately. Nothing is recorded. Nothing is kept.
Not a product
Your conversations are not something Captio AI sells, shares, or monetizes — to anyone, for any reason.
Not used to train anything
What you say in a doctor's appointment or a job interview never ends up in a training dataset. Not ours. Not anyone else's.
Private by default
Download on theApp StoreCaptio AI supports 60+ languages
People love Captio AI
"Almost everything foreign is dubbed into German here, so the lips never match the sound — hopeless for me. Captio AI captions the German soundtrack from the audio. For the first time I can watch a dubbed film and follow it."
"Live news subtitles lag and Austrian German is not the standard I read best. Captio AI captions it in real time from the audio. I read the news as it is spoken, not a few seconds behind."
"Swiss German is a different world and streaming captions barely cover it. Captio AI captions the actual dialogue from the audio. It finally covers the content the platforms leave out."
"German YouTube stacks those long compound words and the auto-captions mangle them. Captio AI captions the clip accurately from the audio. It changed how much I can actually watch."
"Almost everything foreign is dubbed into German here, so the lips never match the sound — hopeless for me. Captio AI captions the German soundtrack from the audio. For the first time I can watch a dubbed film and follow it."
"Live news subtitles lag and Austrian German is not the standard I read best. Captio AI captions it in real time from the audio. I read the news as it is spoken, not a few seconds behind."
"Swiss German is a different world and streaming captions barely cover it. Captio AI captions the actual dialogue from the audio. It finally covers the content the platforms leave out."
"German YouTube stacks those long compound words and the auto-captions mangle them. Captio AI captions the clip accurately from the audio. It changed how much I can actually watch."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Watch anything in German.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store