SystemCaptioner

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SystemCaptioner

★ 43 Open GitHub ↗

Generates and shows real-time captions by listening to your Windows PC's audio. With standalone .exe option.

// repository documentation

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# Update (02/2026):

This project is no longer maintained. I've since built [Hearica](https://hearica.com), a captioning app with lower requirements, better accuracy, and new features like session saving with audio replay.

The original goal of this repo was an easy-to-install accessibility tool for everyone, but Whisper models turned out to be difficult to run for many users, and the chunking strategy used to compensate for the fact that Whisper models are not made for live captioning was quite error-prone.

# System Captioner

Generates and shows real-time captions by listening to your Windows PC's audio. Makes digital content more accessible for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, aids language learning, and more.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7315ab7c-fe30-4c37-91aa-60bb32979338

## How it works

1. Captures system audio in real-time through Windows audio loopback using PyAudioWPatch
3. Locally transcribes the recordings using faster-whisper
4. Displays the transcriptions as captions in a overlay window that remains always on top

Language auto-detection, user-friendly GUI, draggable captions box, and intelligent mode that shows captions only when speech is detected.

By default, the app runs on and requires **nVidia CUDA** (dependencies included). The app should work with RTX 2000, 3000 and 4000 series cards. Turning off GPU mode will make the app run on CPU; start with the smallest model and settle with the model that's stable.

## Installation (Windows)

1. Download the latest standalone .zip (currently 1.38) from the releases section and extract all files. 
 
2. Run SystemCaptioner.exe and follow the instructions.

Alternatively build the standalone executable yourself using build_portable.py. You will need the nvidia_dependencies folder from the standalone .zip (/SystemCaptioner/Controller/_internal/nvidia_dependencies) and install all the dependencies using requirements.txt inside a venv first.

## Limitations/Troubleshooting

‼️ Occasionally, the app can take a long time to start up/load a model. If there are no clear errors in console, wait for at least a few mins or try stopping and starting model again.

If you experienced any issues with System Captioner, let me know in the 'Issues' page of this repo! Include the Console window log if possible.

SystemCaptioner

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