Help Center / For Listeners & Displays / Dubbing a Zoom or Teams meeting through interpretation channels
Dubbing a Zoom or Teams meeting through interpretation channels
Send the translated voice into the meeting's own language menu, so attendees need nothing but the meeting.
5 min read
Zoom and Microsoft Teams meetings can carry interpretation channels: an attendee picks a language inside the meeting and hears the interpreter over the original. Jesus Speaks can be that interpreter. On a computer per language, a listener page sends its voice into the meeting app as if it were a microphone.
What you need
- Zoom: a Pro, Business, Education or Enterprise account with Language Interpretation turned on, and a meeting scheduled with a generated meeting ID. Interpretation does not work with a Personal Meeting ID.
- Teams: language interpretation allowed in your organisation's meeting policy. The organiser may need Teams Premium; check with your IT admin.
- For each language: a computer running the Zoom or Teams desktop app, signed in with the account assigned as that language's interpreter. Interpreters cannot use the web versions of Zoom or Teams.
- On each of those computers: Chrome or Edge, and a free virtual audio device: BlackHole 2ch on Mac, or VB-Audio Virtual Cable on Windows.
- The Jesus Speaks operator console capturing the meeting as usual.
Important
One language per computer
Each interpreter is a separate meeting participant with its own signed-in account, and Zoom and Teams only allow it from the desktop app. Three languages means three computers and three meeting accounts.
Set up the meeting
| Zoom | Teams | |
|---|---|---|
| Turn it on | Settings → Meeting → Language Interpretation, then tick it when scheduling | Meeting options → Roles → Enable language interpretation |
| Assign interpreters | Add each language and the email of the Zoom account that will speak it | Pick each interpreter from the invite list and set their language |
| Interpreter joins with | Zoom desktop app, signed in with that email | Teams desktop app |
| Attendees hear | The interpretation, with the original quieter underneath; they can mute the original | A slider balances the original against the interpretation |
Set up each interpreter computer
- 1Install BlackHole 2ch (Mac) or VB-Audio Virtual Cable (Windows). Restart if the installer asks.
- 2In Chrome or Edge, open the room's listener link, choose the language, and tap Enable audio.
- 3Open “Send this audio to a meeting”, tap Show audio outputs, and choose BlackHole 2ch (Mac) or CABLE Input (Windows). You will no longer hear the translation on this computer; that is expected.
- 4In the Zoom or Teams desktop app, sign in as the interpreter, join the meeting, and set the microphone to BlackHole 2ch (Mac) or CABLE Output (Windows). Leave the speaker on real headphones or speakers.
- 5Zoom only: in Settings → Audio, turn on “Original sound for musicians” and set background noise suppression to Low, so the synthetic voice is not trimmed as noise.
- 6Start interpreting and choose the language channel.
Warning
Don't let the meeting hear itself
Never choose the virtual device as the meeting app's speaker, and don't capture the meeting on an interpreter computer. The translation would loop back into the meeting and be translated again.
Tip
Test before the day
Run a five-minute rehearsal with one attendee per language. Check that each channel carries the right language and that the original is still heard underneath. Interpretation is not available in Teams breakout rooms.
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