Use Pixel 4’s Live Caption to Transcribe Silent Videos
One of the coolest parts of the Google Pixel 4 is its AI-assisted Live Caption feature, which allows your smartphone to automatically caption any audio played in your apps. This allows you to read along with media playback on sources such as YouTube, Twitter, and others.
As Android Police recently discovered , audio transcription works even when your Pixel 4 is muted or the app is muted. This is because the real-time transcription is generated from audio data and not from sounds picked up by the phone’s microphone. If you’d rather turn off autoplay videos (or if your browser doesn’t turn them off by default) but don’t want to miss out on the important information you might get from a random video, this mute and Live Caption combination is for you.
To turn on live captioning on your Pixel 4, go to Settings> Sound> Live Captioning, then tap the slider to turn it on. Your phone will automatically notify you and start subtitling when it knows there is internal audio playing.
It’s a great accessibility option for the hearing impaired, but all users will benefit from real-time captioning, including Pixel 3 and 3a users who will receive the feature in an upcoming update. As far as the mute aspect goes, the part is simple: just turn down the volume of your phone completely when you’re using your web browser. You can also keep it rotated and click on the padlock icon to the right of Chrome’s address bar (for example), click on Site Settings, and block audio across the entire domain.