Setup guide
Open the venue’s projector link on the computer driving the room screen and press F; it shows one language for the whole room. Put the venue’s QR code on the screen before you start and on paper by the doors; every phone that scans it picks its own language. Both come from the same session. This guide covers choosing the screen language, making the screen readable from the back row, placing the QR code where people look, and the ten-minute rehearsal.
One session feeds two outputs. The room screen is a browser on the display computer, full screen, showing the language set for the venue. The phones are the audience’s own, each on the language its owner chose. The sound desk and the desk app on the way in are the same as ever; this guide is about what the room sees.
Two links, one session. Most of the work is deciding what goes where.
The room screen is shared, so it carries one language, the one set as The audience reads on the venue’s Settings tab. Pick the language most of the room needs and cannot get any other way. Phones carry every other language, and each person picks their own.
Two different settings are easy to confuse. The language being spoken is set at the desk (the spoken-language tiles in the desk app, or the moderator page) and changes when a different speaker takes the microphone. The language the screen shows only changes when the room needs a different output; a room reading English keeps reading English when the next speaker speaks Spanish. A moderator can change either mid-event from the moderator page.
The screen and the phones receive the words from the same live session, each in its selected language. The timing can vary a little between devices and between languages.
Any display with a browser in front of it will do: a projector, a TV, an LED wall, a monitor on a stand. A media computer you already use for slides is fine; so is a spare laptop. On that computer, open the venue’s Projector link, spanvoice.com/p/<venue code>, from the venue’s Overview page under For your team or from the desk app under Links & QR. Press F for full screen and leave it. The page reads Waiting for translation… until the event starts.
If the same computer also runs your slides. The projector page is a full-screen browser window; it does not sit over a presentation on the same display. Either give the words their own display, or share a display by giving the browser its own output: on Windows, press Win+P and choose Extend, drag the browser window onto the display that will carry the words, then press F there while the slides stay on the other output. If you have only one output and it is needed for slides, use phones for the words, or put the caption band over a video feed with the stream page.
Set the look once on the venue’s Projector tab in the admin, and every screen that opens the link picks it up: background colour, the colour of settled text and of a line still being spoken, text size, how many lines show (1 to 20), left or centred text, the distance from the bottom and the sides, how soon the screen clears when nobody is speaking, and whether your logo appears top left. A new venue starts at size 54 with 12 lines, which fills most of a full-HD screen. Then stand at the back of the room during a test and read it.
Unfinished words are shown in the same colour as settled text unless you pick a different “Text still arriving” colour on the Projector tab. A line may still change a little while the sentence is finishing. That is normal.
The venue’s reading link, spanvoice.com/v/<venue code>, never changes, so it is safe to print. From the venue’s Overview page, press Print sign for an A4 sheet of fifteen small stickers, each with the QR code and the short link, and Download QR for a code to drop into a slide or to print larger. The QR signs guide covers size and placement.
People open the link, pick a language and read. Nothing is installed and no account is made. Anyone who wants to listen instead needs their own earphones, so say so in the joining information if spoken translation is on for the venue.
Start a short session from the desk app or a test recording. Check the room screen fills and reads from the last row, and open the phone link on your own phone in a different language. Then stop the session and watch both go back to waiting. Ten minutes once, in the empty room, saves a scramble with people in the seats.
The screen is already open, so when the desk presses Start streaming the words appear by themselves. Someone who arrives late sees the QR code by the door and joins the session already running. If a speaker switches language, the operator or a moderator changes the spoken language at the desk or on the moderator page; the screen keeps showing the room’s language and the phones keep showing each person’s.
They are not rivals. The screen is for the whole room; the phones are for each person.
| Room screen | Phones | |
|---|---|---|
| Languages | One, chosen for the venue; a moderator can switch it mid-event. | Any of the sixty, each person picks their own. |
| Who controls it | The operator or a moderator. | The person holding the phone. |
| What it costs | Captions are charged per hour for each language in use, and the screen’s language counts as in use while the screen shows it, even if no phone is reading it. If phones are reading that language anyway, the screen adds nothing. Rates on the pricing page. | However many phones read a language, it is charged as one language. A language no phone and no screen is showing costs nothing. |
| Best for | A room where most people share one second language, and anyone without a phone. | A mixed room, visitors, anyone who wants a different language or bigger text. |
| What it needs | A display, a computer with a browser, internet, and the projector link. | The QR code where people can see it, and the venue’s internet or a phone signal. |
| Spoken translation | No. The screen is text only. | Yes, with earphones, when voice is on for the venue. |
Check the display computer first, then the link, then the session.
Check in order: the display is on the right input; the computer is awake and not locked; the browser is on the projector link and full screen; a session is actually running. A small red dot bottom right means the page has lost its connection and is retrying.
Nothing has been said for about 25 seconds, or no session is running. It is not a fault; the next sentence brings the text back. To keep the last lines on screen longer, change Clear the screen after silence on the Projector tab; Never leaves them up. For one display only, add ?idle=120 (seconds) to its link; ?idle=0 never clears.
Reduce the number of lines and raise the size on the venue’s Projector tab, then check again from the last row. Keys on the display change that screen only.
The venue’s language is set on the Settings tab, and a moderator may have changed it mid-event from the moderator page. Set it back from either place.
Check the link first: is it this venue’s reading link, from the current sign? Then the phone’s own connection, and whether a reload brings the session back.
Check the display computer: the projector link is open, the venue’s language is set, the browser has not been left on another tab, then its connection. Phones are on their own networks, so they prove the session, not the display computer.
Still unsure
Tell us the room and the screen you have and we will say what size, how many lines and where to put the code.
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