Kannada 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 Kannada tv & media
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Kannada 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.
Udaya TV and Kannada news channels run live bulletins that pre-generated captions cannot keep up with — and live news is exempt from India's captioning rules. Point Captio AI at your TV and read the Kannada as it is spoken.
Sun NXT and other platforms vary in subtitle quality and availability. Captio AI works as a consistent fallback for any Kannada show or film that ships with wrong, delayed, or missing captions.
YouTube auto-captions for Kannada are often inaccurate and most social video has none. Point Captio AI at your phone and read accurate Kannada captions for any clip.
A foreign film, a foreign documentary, a non-Kannada channel. Live Translator captions and translates in real time so anything becomes watchable in Kannada as it plays.
Not every cinema showing is captioned. Hold Captio AI near the audio and read real-time Kannada captions of the Sandalwood dialogue discreetly from your seat.
Most Kannada 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 Kannada is hard to understand
Retroflex–dental contrast
- Tongue-curl sounds kept apart from dentals
- Kannada contrasts retroflex and dental consonants — made with the tongue curled back versus at the teeth — and both singletons and doubled forms carry the contrast. On screen a deaf viewer sees the same mouth shape for sounds that make different words in a scene.
Gemination
- Doubled consonants that change the word
- Most Kannada consonants can be geminated, and a doubled consonant makes a different word from a single one. The difference is how long the consonant is held — a timing cue, not a lip shape — so on screen a deaf viewer cannot tell the two apart.
Diglossia
- Formal news Kannada versus everyday speech
- Kannada is diglossic, with formal literary Kannada differing from colloquial speech and further variation across communities. A deaf viewer who lip-reads everyday Kannada meets a news read in a formal register where familiar words take unfamiliar shapes.
Regional dialects on screen
- Bangalore, Dharwad, and Mangalore differ
- Kannada content features Bangalore-Mysore standard Kannada, the northern Dharwad variety, and coastal Mangalore Kannada, which differ in vowels and rhythm. A deaf viewer calibrated to one meets different lip shapes from one show or character to the next.
Kannada–English code-switching
- English dropped into Kannada content
- Bengaluru is India's technology capital, and its Kannada serials, films, and YouTube mix English into Kannada constantly. A deaf viewer meets English phonology on the key word, then returns to Kannada, with no visual warning and no lip to read after a cut.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreIndia mandates some captions — but not for Kannada's live TV and cinema
India carries one of the world's largest hearing loss burdens: the World Health Organization estimates 63 million people in India have significant auditory loss, and Karnataka, home to Bengaluru and a large workforce, shares this burden. Following the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016, the government has moved to require every TV channel to run at least one programme a week with subtitles or captioning.
But the rules leave out most of what a Kannada viewer actually watches. Live news, debates, reality shows, and award shows are explicitly exempted, and the baseline — one captioned programme a week — is a fraction of a channel's output. The daily serials on Udaya TV and Colors Kannada, Sandalwood cinema, and the constant Kannada–English mixing of Bengaluru's content are largely uncaptioned or inconsistently so.
Captio AI does not depend on the broadcaster or the platform. Point the phone at any screen — a live Kannada news debate, an Udaya TV serial, a Sandalwood film — and read Kannada captions in real time, 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
"Kannada serials mix in English constantly and rarely have good captions. Captio AI captions the actual dialogue from the audio, in real time. I follow the whole story now instead of guessing."
"Sandalwood films rarely have captioned showings and the retroflex and doubled consonants are invisible. I hold Captio AI on my knee and read the dialogue from my seat. I stopped waiting for a subtitled release."
"Live Kannada news is exempt from captioning and Dharwad speech is different from Bengaluru anyway. Captio AI captions it in real time from the audio. I finally follow the news."
"Kannada YouTube auto-captions are a mess and the gemination is invisible on the lips. Captio AI captions any clip accurately from the audio. It covers exactly the content the platforms do not."
"Kannada serials mix in English constantly and rarely have good captions. Captio AI captions the actual dialogue from the audio, in real time. I follow the whole story now instead of guessing."
"Sandalwood films rarely have captioned showings and the retroflex and doubled consonants are invisible. I hold Captio AI on my knee and read the dialogue from my seat. I stopped waiting for a subtitled release."
"Live Kannada news is exempt from captioning and Dharwad speech is different from Bengaluru anyway. Captio AI captions it in real time from the audio. I finally follow the news."
"Kannada YouTube auto-captions are a mess and the gemination is invisible on the lips. Captio AI captions any clip accurately from the audio. It covers exactly the content the platforms do not."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Watch anything in Kannada.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store