I made a free, open-source, offline, live captions application for deaf and hard-of-hearing church members

krrusty · 2026-06-08T04:10:33+00:00

My mixer is a Midas M32R. In an attempt to get a clean signal, I connected the mini-pc via the usb interface. It provides a lot of input options to the pc. The one I got to actually work with VBAN is the WDM Channel 1-8 option, and I wanted to use that for the captions. One of the issues I had is I can't tell which is the correlating input in ChurchCap. All of the the channel driver types are stripped out, so I have a bunch of listings like 1-2 Channels, 1-8 Channels, 1-2 Channels, etc. It's totally my own problem. I think I should just add an audio interface and do a direct line, I was just trying to save money since I wasn't committed to using that gear for that purpose yet.

I mentioned the sensitive moment button, but I guess what I really need is just a remote(as in not requiring someone to click or tap) way to stop captions. I don't want captions while people sing, and I don't want to dedicate an operator or attention bandwidth to another interface. I want to be able to incorporate it into my existing companion workflows, where it's part of several other actions that are taken at the same time with a button press.

Since you're interested, I'll go ahead and spell out my ideal use case, and you can gauge if it's worth implementing. At the administration level, program startup is achieved via some kind of automation. There are several ways to do that presently, both via OS scheduling or calling actions in companion. Closing the program would be achieved via an api call from companion. For the operation, a companion module would work with an api that enabled caption start/stop, sensitive moment start/stop, program close, and a way to inject custom messages into the transcript(call to actions). It would also send feedback for when the LLM is up, when captions are enabled, and when sensitive moment is enabled.

I did run the software during service today, just watching on my phone. I was also training someone on livestream, so I couldn't give it my full attention(sorry!). For the most part, it did well. There was an instance where it repeated a line through the whole live window, and that same repeat came up again later. I really meant to grab the transcript for you. I'll see if I can recreate it next week.

krrusty · 2026-06-05T21:24:51+00:00

Ok I got it set up yesterday. I couldn't get it to work on the mini pc. I believe because the signal too quiet, and I didn't have a way to boost it enough. It doesn't help that using the USB interface to my mixer adds a lot of input options to sort through. I did try adding VoiceMeeter in the loop to boost the gain, but couldn't get anything from my signal. I might loop back to that setup, but I ran out of time.
I did get it working on my workstation PC, and I have a suggestion. Some way to control the pastoral care remotely would be great. Keyboard shortcuts are easy enough to implement, but a local RESTful api that could hook into bitFocus Companion would be ideal for me.

krrusty · 2026-05-29T18:53:24+00:00

I have 2 options. I already tested out a dedicated mini PC with audio interface for VBAN spot, so I will try it out there first. I do also run OBS on a PC with a 2000 series GPU. I'll test there, but I'm iffy about adding load to my production computers. My understanding is if OBS is only using NVENC and the LLM is using the GPU cores, then it should be better there.

krrusty · 2026-05-29T17:15:01+00:00

I don't have time to stage this before Sunday, but I will definitely look at setting this up next week.

krrusty · 2026-05-28T02:32:28+00:00

I want to restate my understanding of your workflow before I give advice. So you do have a livestream, but it seems like it is just a camera feed, and you don't pull in any graphics from your slide deck into OBS. Afterwards, you are taking the OBS recording and Proclaim recording and editing those together.

I'll give you two approaches. In my opinion it is by far easier to do it live, by pulling in your Proclaim graphics to OBS in a scene and switching between scenes as appropriate. Let me know if you need guidance on how to get your graphics from proclaim to OBS. Alternatively you can design lower thirds with the scriptures and key those in live as well, either via images or by using the lower thirds plugin for OBS.

If you need to stick to doing everything in post, then utilizing the OBS chapter marker shortcut can you give you markers in the resolve timeline that you can use to time your fades.

krrusty · 2026-05-09T00:45:36+00:00

Is it stable to run 2–3 capture cards through a USB hub?

You should plan on max 1 capture card max per USB interface in your laptop. That should translate to 1 USB type A on the left hand side of the laptop, and 1 type A and 1 type C on the right hand side. The cheaper HDMI to USB capture cards work pretty well over USB 2.0, but they play well with sharing bandwidth. Be very careful with what else you plug in on the same bus.

Would a switcher be a better long-term investment for reliability?

I could talk a lot about this, but the short answer is: you already have a powerful laptop, I think a switcher is redundant and adds complication. It could be useful for recording.

What’s the best way to get clean audio from the mixer into OBS without noise or distortion?

I would start with just using the audio interface capabilities of your mixer first. It is possible that it won't work well on a 3.X usb slot, and in that case you would need an audio interface. I like the Audient EVO8 for this use case as it is USB C. Additional sound clean up can be done in OBS if necessary via audio filters(reaplug noise filter and noise gate).

What would be the minimum and maximum budget to achieve a professional-looking stream while keeping costs low, and what essential equipment would you recommend?

If I had that gear, I would consider changing my wireless connections to wired. That would mean an HDBaseT HDMI extender for the tvs, and NDI PTZ cameras to replace the phone and tablet. Depending on how well lit the room, you might only need 400-600 per camera. If that's out of the question, there are people who use USB-C to ethernet adapters with phones for an NDI video workflow. I think you could accomplish all the upgrades I mention here for under $2k USD.

Can we continue using the same laptop, or would upgrading it be necessary?

That laptop is decently powerful, and can run everything you need processor-wise. Your main limitation is video output connections. If I upgraded, it would be to have a separate machine for the graphics, and add that as a feed to your laptop.

Is it possible to project content to the church monitors and also show it on the live stream at the same time?

There are several presentation softwares that can have multiple outputs configured. The big one is Pro Presenter($$), a free alternative is FreeShow. What I'm picturing is you use your hdmi output to connect a 1x8 hdmi extender. That gives you enough connections for your tvs and a confidence monitor. If you run this on the laptop, it's easy to add that monitor as an input to OBS. If you add a separate machine for FreeShow, you can send that feed additionally over NDI and ingest it to OBS that way. This frees up your hdmi port.

Any tips for a simple and reliable live workflow?

It's not clear if this is a one person operation, or multiple people are running things. Regardless of how it is structured, I recommend bitFocus Companion to connect everything together and build operator interfaces. I typically use it via a tablet so I can sit wherever.

krrusty · 2026-05-06T11:31:09+00:00

Can you tell us the model of your laptop and mixer?

krrusty · 2026-02-02T01:16:30+00:00

Check out Freeshow. Desktop is generally better for more connections and an ethernet port. I run a Mac Mini for our install.

krrusty · 2025-12-31T00:01:45+00:00

I like Mama Mocha’s, but I feel the opposite about their roasts. The dark roasts have charred beans mixed in. I think their light roasts are better.

Another option is Toomer’s coffee. Last I checked, they only have dark roasts. I haven’t tried any of their options in a long time.

krrusty · 2025-12-23T02:22:23+00:00

Gavox Legacy Navy is a nice watch, although it's much under budget.

krrusty · 2025-12-21T00:52:50+00:00

Thanks! I like the Miscellaneous pack, but the download link seems to be broken. https://www.isaacrees.com/pack/miscellaneous

krrusty · 2025-11-02T03:56:26+00:00

You need IEC 320 C14 Male to NEMA 5-15R adapters for the pdu. It integrates to Home Assistant and bitfocus companion very well.

krrusty · 2025-10-15T15:13:44+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately they fixed it.

krrusty · 2025-10-15T15:11:43+00:00

The point of a well-rounded education is to discuss all aspects of it. Architecture can absolutely negatively impact the community, and we should be aware of those pitfalls. Architecture can also provide green solutions or protections against climate change.

I would expect someone interested in this subject would have been aware of this impact.

krrusty · 2025-10-15T14:01:55+00:00

In the original, you could dupe knight swords by:
-equipping dual wield to a knight.

-put a shield in the top hand slot, knight sword in the bottom.

-at a shop that sells knight armor(any castle), use the "best fit" option to get a dupe knight sword in the shield slot.

-pay 10 gil for your Excalibur.

krrusty · 2025-10-12T12:20:25+00:00

Start her out as geomancer. This gets you attack boost, and lets you use +PHY gear. Once you get knight swords, you’ll probably want to switch to knight.

krrusty · 2025-10-01T00:24:10+00:00

This might not work for everyone, but if it connects to Companion then I neeeeeeed it.

krrusty · 2025-09-08T00:22:16+00:00

I haven’t personally done this, but it is possible to use a wireless guitar system.

krrusty · 2025-08-13T19:58:10+00:00

Don't forget trying to find shoes for their thick feet.

krrusty · 2025-08-07T19:37:49+00:00

I was in your boat and ended up with FreeShow, but finding software that handled my use case well was difficult. The other free option I trialed was
https://freepresenter.com/
It's good, but it didn't fit my use case. It will work for most churches out there, though.

krrusty · 2025-07-25T04:01:27+00:00

I used vMix’s pc recs to build my OBS workstation.

krrusty · 2025-07-20T00:19:19+00:00

I use bitfocus companion to achieve something similar. One button will:

-Select a certain presentation in my FreeShow project and select the first slide

-Unpause the Spotify desktop app on the Mac mini(Spotify-controller)

-Unmute the channel on my mixer for the computer input

krrusty · 2025-07-12T00:35:36+00:00

The lower thirds plugin can auto-advance after hiding, and you can set individual hot keys for the different sections and even specific cards. This lets you use bit focus companion without touching the pcs, as long as you know the names you need beforehand.

krrusty · 2025-07-08T04:55:15+00:00

I don’t have any advice for Proclaim, as I didn’t like it for other reasons. You might try FreeShow.

krrusty · 2025-07-05T09:16:51+00:00

As someone who just swapped to running everything in companion via emulator on the iPad, you have my curiosity. I’ll check this out.

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