Twitch live translation: Set up local AI subtitles in OBS

You can add live subtitles and AI translation to a Twitch stream with OMNI Live Translator on your Windows PC. OMNI gives you a browser source—a way to show a web page inside your stream—which you add to OBS as a caption overlay, or a visual layer placed over your video. By the end of this guide, your viewers will see one or two translated languages while everything runs on your computer.

Key takeaways

• Twitch doesn’t automatically caption most ordinary streams.
• OMNI can show two translated languages at the same time.
• The app’s speech recognition and built-in AI translation run on your PC.
• Streamers can add OMNI’s caption URL to OBS as a browser source.
• Viewers can translate Twitch audio without help from the streamer.
• Captions work offline after the initial language downloads.
• Nothing is uploaded, and there are no monthly or per-minute fees.

What you need

You need a Windows PC, OMNI, OBS, and an audio source that OMNI can hear.

• A Windows 10 or Windows 11 64-bit PC.
• A modern NVIDIA graphics card for the best real-time performance.
• OMNI Live Translator, which includes a full-featured 30-day free trial with no credit card required.
• OBS Studio, the free program that sends your video and audio to Twitch.
• A working microphone for streamer-side captions.
• Headphones for testing, so sound from your speakers doesn’t feed back into the microphone.
• Several gigabytes of free storage for the languages you download.

You don’t need an OMNI account to run the app. You need internet access for the first language downloads and, of course, to broadcast or watch Twitch. After setup, OMNI itself can create and translate captions offline.

How to add live translation to a Twitch stream

The basic setup is simple: OMNI listens to your microphone, creates captions, and gives OBS a URL to display them.

1. Install OMNI and start the trial. Download the Windows installer and open the app. Start the 30-day free trial when prompted. No credit card is required. If Windows shows a security prompt, confirm that you want to run the app. You don’t need to create an account just to use captioning.
2. Choose the audio you want captioned. Select the same microphone you use for your stream. Speak normally and check that OMNI can hear you clearly. Try not to send game sounds, music, or alerts into the caption input unless you want those sounds included. Keeping your voice separate usually gives you cleaner captions.
3. Download the languages you need. Open the Languages & Models page, then choose Get more languages. Download the spoken and translated languages you plan to use. You can pick Fastest, Balanced, or Most accurate, and the app will choose the right setup for your PC. Do this before stream day so you aren’t waiting for a large download during your countdown.
4. Choose a speed and quality setting. Balanced is a good starting point for most people. Pick Fastest if your game, OBS, and OMNI are all using a lot of your graphics card. Choose Most accurate if your PC has room to spare and you care more about translation quality than speed. Test your full game and stream layout before settling on a setting.
5. Set the spoken and target languages. First choose the language you speak. Then choose one or two languages for your viewers. An English streamer could show Spanish and French together. A Brazilian Portuguese streamer could show English and Spanish. OMNI displays both translations for each phrase. It also waits briefly through small pauses and breaths, which helps it translate complete thoughts instead of awkward sentence fragments.
6. Start captioning and speak in full sentences. Run a local caption session and talk for at least 30 seconds. Try game terms, usernames, numbers, and a few longer sentences. If the captions slow down while your game is running, move down one setting before changing the rest of your stream. On a gaming PC with a modern NVIDIA graphics card, the first captions can appear in under a second. Your result will still depend on the PC and the setting you chose.
7. Add OMNI to OBS as a browser source. Copy OMNI’s browser-source URL. In OBS, open the scene where you want captions. A scene is simply one screen layout, such as gameplay, chatting, or a starting screen. Click + in the Sources panel, choose Browser, create a new source, and paste the address into the URL field. Set the width and height to match your stream canvas when needed—for example, 1920 by 1080. Place the caption source above your gameplay or camera sources so it stays visible. Resize it in the preview, and keep it away from health bars, maps, chat boxes, and other useful information. The official OBS Browser Source guide explains its URL, size, transparency, and refresh controls; the OBS subtitles and translation guide covers deeper scene-layout choices.

8. Record a private test before going live. Make a one-minute recording in OBS with your game, microphone, and both target languages active. Check that the captions stay inside the picture and don’t sit behind alerts. Watch a bright part of the game to make sure the text remains easy to read. These are open captions, meaning they are part of the video picture. Every viewer sees them, and viewers can’t turn them off with Twitch’s CC button.
9. Go live and watch the first few minutes. Open your channel on another device and turn on the stream audio. Check that the captions still appear after you change scenes. Also make sure your microphone, not your desktop sound, is creating them. OBS can refresh a browser source whenever its scene appears, but leave that option off if it restarts a caption session that was already working.

OMNI also has a movable caption window that can stay above your other windows. The browser source is the easiest choice when you want every Twitch viewer to see the captions. The movable window is better for checking captions privately or translating a stream that you are watching yourself.

Watching someone else’s Twitch stream?

You can translate almost any Twitch stream without waiting for the creator to install an extension. Open Twitch, play the stream, and switch OMNI to its watch-anywhere mode. OMNI will listen to the sound playing on your PC.

Choose the language spoken on the stream and the language you want to read. Then show the result in OMNI’s movable caption window. Turn on the always-stay-on-top option and place the window above or below the Twitch player. OMNI listens, creates captions, and translates them on your PC. The streamer and other viewers can’t see your private captions.

This fills a real gap. Twitch’s official caption guide says Twitch-produced events may receive professional captions, while captions elsewhere must be supplied by the streamer or broadcast encoder. If a channel has no CC button or caption extension, OMNI’s watch-anywhere mode doesn’t need the streamer’s cooperation.

The same approach works with other streaming sites and desktop video players. If you broadcast elsewhere, the Kick live translation guide follows a similar browser-source setup.

Picking languages: English, Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese

Choose the languages your viewers actually use. Because OMNI can show two translations at once, you can help two groups without running a second caption setup.

For English-to-Japanese or English-to-Korean streams, do a test run before going live. Japanese viewers will notice if casual speech suddenly sounds too formal. Korean viewers will notice inconsistent politeness. OMNI’s built-in AI translation works with complete sentences, so let it hear a full thought instead of treating every tiny pause as the end of a phrase.

The app lets you select from 30+ languages. Download only the languages you need for your planned source and targets. It is much nicer to handle those downloads during setup than to discover them during a live countdown.

Why run translation locally?

Running OMNI on your PC keeps your audio and captions private. Nothing is uploaded. There are no monthly fees or per-minute charges, and you don’t have to wait for a cloud service to answer. After the initial language downloads, captioning and translation work offline. You will still need internet access for Twitch itself.

The process is straightforward. OMNI listens to your microphone or computer audio, turns speech into captions, and translates complete sentences. Your microphone audio, captions, and translated text stay on your computer. OMNI doesn’t upload or log them.

My pet peeve with cloud captioning isn’t just the bill. It’s seeing a working caption overlay stop halfway through a long stream because the internet dropped, an account signed out, or a usage limit was reached. Running it on your PC removes those worries and keeps the cost predictable: zero per-minute fees.

How does it compare to Twitch’s familiar caption options?

OMNI is the choice here if you want two translated languages in OBS while keeping the whole caption process on your PC. The other options can still make sense for simpler needs.

If you only need captions in the language you speak and want viewers to turn them on or style them through Twitch, a caption extension may be enough. Stream Closed Captioner also offers translation to 50+ targets. Its current documentation describes one language chosen by the broadcaster and activated for 24 hours with 500 Bits.

Chrome is a useful viewer-side backup because its captions run on the PC and work with browser audio. Its Live Translate feature supports many languages, but translated captions are sent to Google. It also shows one translated language and doesn’t give streamers a ready-made two-language OBS layout. The original Web Captioner was popular because it was simple and free, but it stopped operating on October 31, 2023.

FAQ

Does Twitch automatically create captions for every live stream?

No. Twitch provides live captions for some Twitch-produced content. Ordinary channels usually need captions from the streamer, an extension, or broadcasting software such as OBS. The CC button appears only when compatible captions are available.

Can I add Twitch stream subtitles through OBS?

Yes. Add OMNI’s caption URL as an OBS Browser source and place it above the other items in your scene. The captions become part of the broadcast picture, so viewers don’t need an extension. They also can’t turn these captions off with Twitch’s CC button.

Can I translate a Twitch stream if the streamer hasn’t enabled captions?

Yes. OMNI’s watch-anywhere mode can listen to Twitch audio playing on your Windows PC. It shows the translation in a movable caption window that stays above the Twitch player. The streamer doesn’t need to install or enable anything.

Which languages can I use?

OMNI offers 30+ selectable languages. You can display two translated languages at once, such as English speech in Japanese and Korean or Portuguese speech in English and Spanish.

Are Twitch audio and translations uploaded anywhere?

No. OMNI creates and translates captions on your own PC. It doesn’t upload or log the audio, captions, or translations. After the initial language downloads, the caption process works offline.

How much does OMNI cost?

The full app has a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. After that, the launch price is a one-time $19.95 lifetime license for one PC at a time. There is no subscription or per-minute billing. If you replace your PC, you can move the license up to three times.

Download the OMNI Live Translator free trial when you’re ready to test the setup with your own Twitch audio.