Feature · Video calls
Eye contact, in two languages.
Video calls are the closest most of us get to being in the same room. NatChatt’s captions sit underneath the frame, not over it, so you can keep looking at the person you came to see.
In the app
The video call, with captions under the frame.
During a NatChatt video call the other person fills the screen and captions in your language drift along the lower edge. The face stays uncovered, the meaning stays underneath, and the controls sit out of the way until you reach for them.
The face you came to see is the face you came to see. We don’t put a subtitle box over the chin. Captions render on a band below the video, where you can glance down and back up without losing the moment.
Group video calls do the same trick the group chat does: each person reads captions in the language they chose. Up to four faces on the screen at once; everyone else listens in.
Bandwidth is honest about itself. If the connection is rough, we cut the video quality first and protect the audio and the captions, since those are the parts of the call you can actually still use. When the connection comes back, the video comes back with it.
A small moment
Meeting her father, on a screen.
It’s the first call with her parents. They’re in Khon Kaen, you’re in your living room in Cleveland. Her dad sets the laptop on a stool and her mother sits beside him, holding both hands in her lap.
Across the bottom of your screen: “He is asking if you cook for yourself. He wants to make sure his daughter has chosen someone who looks after themselves.” You laugh. He laughs. You hold up the pan.