AI features: translation & subtitles
- 01
What the AI features do
OpenBooth transcribes your broadcast live and translates it into multiple target languages. Each listener picks individually whether to hear a translated voice and whether to display subtitles.
- Voice-over: translated speech in the chosen language, alongside the original.
- Subtitles: live text in the original language or already translated.
- Both options are independent. Listeners can enable subtitles only, voice-over only, both or none.
- 02
Multiple speakers: everything gets translated
Once the AI features are active, OpenBooth captures every audio publisher in the channel: host, additional hosts, speakers, admitted guest speakers and the OBS ingest. All sources are mixed server-side into a single audio stream, sent through a speech recognizer and then translated.
- All sources: every identity publishing into the channel feeds the AI pipeline automatically. No separate config needed.
- Cost stays flat: whether one speaker or five at once. Billing is per speech segment on the mixed signal, not per person.
- Subtitles without names: text shows chronologically, no speaker prefix. Who's talking is indicated by the pulsing ring around the avatar in the studio.
Heads up
Like in Teams or Zoom: when two people speak at the same time, recognition quality suffers. The mix becomes a single stream and STT can't separate overlapping voices as cleanly. For clean subtitles, speakers should take turns. - 03
Activate AI features
An org admin enables AI features in Billing. You pick between Wallet (top up credit and spend it) and BYOK (provide your own provider API key). When activating, you confirm the terms of use for the AI features.
Note
While any stream of the organization is live, the billing mode (Wallet/BYOK) can't be switched or disabled. That prevents mid-stream switches that would cause outages or double billing. - 04
Wallet
With Wallet you top up credit and spend it as needed. Usage is charged per session and listed individually in the payment history.
- Top up: manually any time. Amounts between €5 and €1,000 per top-up.
- Auto-top-up: set a threshold and a top-up amount. When the balance drops below the threshold, the wallet is refilled automatically.
- 05
BYOK: bring your own key
With BYOK you provide your own API key with the AI provider. Requests run through your account and the provider bills you directly. OpenBooth doesn't sit in between.
- Store key: encrypted at rest. You can rotate or remove the key any time.
- Fair-use limit: a monthly fair-use limit applies. Pro plans share a single limit; Enterprise plans get tailored terms.
- Your responsibility: you handle rate limits, permissions and remaining credit with the provider yourself.
- Deletion on downgrade: if you move to Free or withdraw from Pro, stored keys are automatically and fully removed from our database.
Note
Set a spending limit at the provider to avoid surprises during viral broadcasts. - 06
Pay-per-speech
You only pay when someone is actually speaking. Silence and pauses are detected and not sent to the AI, so they don't incur cost. A 30-minute broadcast with long pauses costs noticeably less than 30 minutes of continuous talking.
- 07
Activation in the stream
The AI features per broadcast are chosen in the studio. You can set them before the stream and toggle them, disable them or change languages any time while live.
- Channel host & org admin can toggle AI features on a session at any time, including mid-stream.
- Speakers have no access to these controls. Only the host decides whether subtitles or voice-over run for the session.
- Switching the organization-wide billing mode (Wallet ↔ BYOK) is locked while any stream of the org is live. The session-level toggle stays available.
- 08
Listener view
When AI is active for the session, two independent toggles appear in the listener bar: subtitles and voice-over. Each listener picks individually: both, just one or none. The original audio always plays in parallel.
- 09
In-stream warnings
When your wallet balance runs low or you approach the fair-use limit, OpenBooth shows a notice in the studio. That way you know in time to top up or disable the features before they cut out.
Heads up
When the wallet is empty or the fair-use limit is hit, the AI features are paused automatically. The original audio keeps running, only translation and subtitles stop. - 10
Auto-disable on errors
If an issue with the AI provider occurs during the broadcast (invalid key, quota exhausted, provider error), the AI features for the current session are disabled automatically. No further cost accrues and no broken translations are sent.
Note
After auto-disable you have to switch the features on again manually in the studio once the issue is resolved. - 11
Analytics & payment history
Every broadcast has a detailed usage view in the session detail dialog. The wallet area additionally shows the payment history with all top-ups and charges.
- Timeline per session: which languages were active when, how much was actually spoken.
- Segments: tier, language count, duration and cost per segment. You see exactly what you paid for.
- Payment history: every top-up and every session charge as an individual line item.