Telugu 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 Telugu tv & media
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Telugu 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.
Telugu news channels run live bulletins and debates that pre-generated captions cannot keep up with — and live news is exempt from India's captioning rules anyway. Point Captio AI at your TV and read the Telugu as it is spoken.
ETV, Star Maa, and the Telugu streaming service aha vary in subtitle quality and availability. Captio AI works as a consistent fallback for any Telugu show or film that ships with wrong, delayed, or missing captions.
YouTube auto-captions for Telugu are often inaccurate and most social video has none. Point Captio AI at your phone and read accurate Telugu captions for any clip.
A foreign film, a foreign documentary, a non-Telugu channel. Live Translator captions and translates in real time so anything becomes watchable in Telugu as it plays.
Not every cinema showing is captioned. Hold Captio AI near the audio and read real-time Telugu captions of the Tollywood dialogue discreetly from your seat.
Most Telugu 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 Telugu is hard to understand
Retroflex consonants
- Tongue-curl sounds invisible on screen
- Telugu contrasts apical and retroflex consonants — ʈ, ɖ, ɳ made with the tongue curled back — that give no signal at the lips. On a serial or a fast news read a deaf viewer sees the same shape for a dental and a retroflex sound, two different consonants that change the word in a scene.
Vowel length and gemination
- Long vowels and doubled consonants that carry meaning
- Telugu has phonemic vowel length and consonant gemination — a long vowel or a doubled consonant makes a different word. These are timing distinctions, not lip shapes, so at broadcast pace a deaf viewer cannot see which of two terms was said on screen.
Telugu–English code-switching
- English dropped into Telugu content
- Telugu films, serials, and YouTube mix English terms into Telugu constantly. A deaf viewer must switch to English phonology on the key words, then back to Telugu, with no visual warning and no lip to read when the camera cuts away.
Regional varieties on screen
- Telangana, coastal Andhra, and Rayalaseema differ
- Telugu content features Telangana Telugu, coastal Andhra Telugu, and Rayalaseema varieties, which differ in vowels, vocabulary, and rhythm. A deaf viewer calibrated to one meets different lip shapes from one show or character to the next.
Sanskritised register
- Formal news Telugu versus everyday speech
- News and prestige drama reach for a formal, heavily Sanskritised register with long compounds quite different from everyday Telugu. The news read and the family serial can feel like two varieties of the language to a deaf viewer.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreIndia mandates some captions — but not for Telugu's live TV and films
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 the combined Telugu-speaking population of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana runs into tens of millions. 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 Telugu 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. Telugu cinema is one of India's largest film industries, yet captioned showings are rare; streaming subtitle quality varies, and the constant Telugu–English mixing of content is exactly where automated subtitles struggle most.
Captio AI does not depend on the broadcaster or the platform. Point the phone at any screen — a live Telugu news debate, a Star Maa serial, a Tollywood film — and read Telugu 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
"Telugu films rarely have captioned showings, and Tollywood dialogue mixes in English. I hold Captio AI on my knee and read the lines from my seat. I stopped waiting for a subtitled home release to watch a film."
"Star Maa serials rarely have good captions and the retroflex and long-vowel contrasts are invisible on the lips. Captio AI captions the actual dialogue from the audio. I follow the whole story now."
"Live Telugu news debates are exempt from captioning and everyone talks over each other. Captio AI captions it in real time from the audio. I finally know what the panel is actually saying."
"aha and other apps are inconsistent with captions. Captio AI captions whatever is playing from the audio, in real time. It covers exactly the content the platforms do not."
"Telugu films rarely have captioned showings, and Tollywood dialogue mixes in English. I hold Captio AI on my knee and read the lines from my seat. I stopped waiting for a subtitled home release to watch a film."
"Star Maa serials rarely have good captions and the retroflex and long-vowel contrasts are invisible on the lips. Captio AI captions the actual dialogue from the audio. I follow the whole story now."
"Live Telugu news debates are exempt from captioning and everyone talks over each other. Captio AI captions it in real time from the audio. I finally know what the panel is actually saying."
"aha and other apps are inconsistent with captions. Captio AI captions whatever is playing from the audio, in real time. It covers exactly the content the platforms do not."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Watch anything in Telugu.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store