Getting started with VolenScribe
Everything you need to know to provide live transcriptions at your events and make them accessible to everyone.
How VolenScribe Works
VolenScribe uses advanced AI to convert speech into text in real-time. As a broadcaster speaks, their words appear instantly on attendees' devices. Here's the basic flow:
Purchasing Event Credits
VolenScribe uses a per-event credit system. Purchase a package for each event you run.
How Credits Work
- Each package gives you a set duration (e.g. 3 hours for Meetup, 12 hours for Full-Day)
- When creating an event, you assign one of your purchased credits to it
- Credits are consumed in real-time while broadcasting (1 credit = 1 minute)
- Each package includes a maximum attendee limit for simultaneous viewers
Important: Credits are Per-Event
Once you allocate credits to an event, they cannot be transferred to a different event. Make sure to choose the right package size for your event's needs when purchasing.
Community Pricing
Are you a non-profit, educational institution, open-source community, or running free public events? You may qualify for our discounted community pricing - up to 60% off standard rates. Check our pricing page for details.
Creating Your Event
Each event gets its own unique URL that attendees will use to view live transcriptions.
Event Setup Options
Event Name
This is displayed to your attendees on the viewer page. Choose something descriptive like "DevFest Ireland 2024" or "Company All-Hands Meeting".
Custom URL Slug
Your event will be accessible at volen.live/your-slug. You can choose a custom slug or let the system generate one automatically.
Event Description
Adding a description helps the AI understand specialised terms, speaker names, and topics for better transcription accuracy.
Event Logo
Upload your event or organisation logo to personalise the viewer experience. Square format works best, maximum 5MB.
Organising with Sessions
Sessions are so much more than folders - they're how you teach the AI about your talk.
What Are Sessions?
Think of sessions as chapters or segments of your event. For a conference, each talk would be a session. For a meetup, you might have sessions for different speakers. You can create as many as you need, and switch between them live as your event progresses.
"Opening Keynote - Sarah Johnson", "Panel Discussion: Future of AI", "Q&A Session", "Closing Remarks"
Why Session Descriptions Really Matter
Here's the bit most people miss - and it's honestly the secret to getting brilliant transcriptions. Every session has a description field, and whatever you write in there gets passed directly to the AI as context for that talk.
Live transcription AI is incredibly good, but it can't read minds. If a speaker mentions "Kubernetes", "Siobhán", or "gRPC" out of the blue, the AI has to guess - and it might hear "coobernetties", "Shavawn", or "g RPC". But if you've told it in advance what the talk is about and who's speaking? It knows exactly what to listen for.
- Speaker names - especially unusual spellings or non-English names
- Technical terms, product names, and acronyms that'll come up
- Company or organisation names mentioned in the talk
- The topic or theme - a sentence or two about what the talk covers
- Any industry-specific jargon (medical, legal, academic terminology)
- Names of places, events, or projects that'll be referenced
"Talk by Siobhán O'Sullivan, Staff Engineer at Stripe, on scaling PostgreSQL and pgBouncer connection pooling. Covers WAL replication, logical decoding, Citus, and comparisons with CockroachDB and Amazon Aurora. References the Jepsen test suite."
Pro Tip: Pre-create Sessions
Ask your speakers to send over a short blurb about their talk a few days before the event - most will happily do it, and you can drop it straight into the session description. It takes five minutes and makes a genuinely huge difference to transcription accuracy for your attendees.
Broadcasting Live
When you start broadcasting, VolenScribe captures audio and converts it to text in real-time.
Starting Your Broadcast
- 1Navigate to your event's broadcast page from your dashboard
- 2Select the session you want to broadcast (or create one if needed)
- 3Choose your transcription language from the dropdown menu
- 4Click "Start Broadcast" - your browser will request microphone permission
- 5Watch the audio level meter to confirm your microphone is working
Best Practices for Quality Transcriptions
Things to Avoid
- -Background noise and music - these can confuse the transcription
- -Multiple speakers talking simultaneously
- -Very quiet or muffled audio - speak clearly into the microphone
- -Unreliable WiFi networks - consider using mobile data as a backup
Sharing with Attendees
Getting attendees to access your live transcriptions is simple - no app downloads required.
Ways to Share Your Event
Share volen.live/your-event in your event programme, slides, or announcements.
Download a QR code from your broadcast page. Display it on screens or print it on programmes.
Viewer Features
Attendees don't need an account to view transcriptions. They can customise their viewing experience to suit their needs:
- Adjustable font size - from extra small to extra large
- Choice of font styles - sans-serif, serif, or monospace
- Light and dark mode for different lighting conditions
- Auto-scroll toggle to follow along or pause and read
- Full-width or constrained reading mode
On-Stage Caption Overlay
For venues with video production, use the green screen overlay for live captions on screen.
Using the Overlay
Access your overlay at volenscribe.com/overlay/your-event. This page displays live captions on a chroma key background that your video team can key out.
Overlay Features:
- Customisable chroma key colours - green, blue, magenta, or custom
- Adjustable font size, colour, and background opacity
- Position captions top, centre, or bottom of the screen
- Shareable settings URLs - configure once, share with your team
- Line limit controls to prevent captions covering too much screen
Video Production Tips
- OBS Studio: Add a Browser Source pointing to your overlay URL. Apply a Chroma Key filter to remove the background.
- vMix: Add a Web Browser input and use the built-in colour key effect.
- Wirecast: Add a Web Page shot layer and apply the chroma key effect.
After Your Event
Download transcriptions and archive your event once complete.
Downloading Transcriptions
You can download transcriptions for individual sessions or your entire event. Transcriptions are available in the following formats:
- Plain Text (.txt) - Simple text file with all transcriptions, organised by session
- JSON (.json) - Structured data format with timestamps and session information, useful for further processing or archiving