Closed captions or burned-in subtitles?
Closed captions live in a separate file, SRT or VTT, that the player shows on top of the video. Viewers can turn them on or off and pick a language, and search engines can read them. Use them on your website, on video platforms and in course players.
Burned-in captions, also called open captions, are part of the picture itself. They show up everywhere, even in apps that ignore subtitle files, and they are the norm for short clips in social feeds. The trade-off: nobody can turn them off or swap the language later.
Many creators do both: a subtitle file for the full video, burned-in captions for the clips cut from it.
Generate the subtitles
Drop the MP4, or an audio file if you are subtitling a podcast. Speech is transcribed and every line gets a start and an end time, usually within a few minutes for an hour of video.
Choose the spoken language before you start; more than 40 are supported. If you also need subtitles in another language, give the reviewed file to a translator: a corrected transcript in the original language is the best possible starting point.
When the speaker changes within a subtitle, a dash marks the new voice, a common subtitling convention. Turn it off for a video with a single narrator.
Make them easy to read
Readable subtitles follow a few long-standing conventions: about 42 characters per line at most, two lines per subtitle, and each subtitle on screen for at least one second, ideally long enough to read it twice. The defaults follow these rules, and you can adjust them.
Break lines at natural pauses, not in the middle of a phrase: “I didn’t expect / the ending at all” reads better than “I didn’t expect the / ending at all”. Automatic line breaks favor punctuation and phrase boundaries.
Reading speed matters as much as line length. Fast talkers produce subtitles that flash by; merging short lines or trimming filler words keeps the pace comfortable without changing what was said.
SRT or VTT: which file to export
SRT is the most widely accepted subtitle format: a numbered list of subtitles, each with a start and end time written like 00:01:02,500 --> 00:01:05,000. Video platforms, editing software and media players almost all read it.
VTT, short for WebVTT, is the format of the web. Browsers read it natively through the track element of the HTML video player, and it supports positioning and basic styling. Its timestamps use a dot instead of a comma, and the file starts with the line WEBVTT.
If you are unsure, export both; it costs nothing more. Use VTT for the player on your own website and SRT everywhere else.
Burn captions into a clip
For social clips, choose Burn subtitles into the video. Pick a style that stays readable on any background, white text with a dark outline or on a semi-transparent box, placed in the lower third but above the area where apps put their buttons.
Vertical videos need shorter lines: 25 to 30 characters, often one line at a time, in a larger size. Highlighting the word being spoken works well on short clips; keep it for those, as it becomes tiring over several minutes.
The export renders a new MP4 with the captions drawn in, at the resolution of the original. Your source video is never modified.
Frequently asked questions
Which subtitle format do video platforms accept?
SRT is accepted almost everywhere, and VTT is the native format of web players. If you are unsure, export both: it costs nothing extra.
Can I edit the subtitles after generating them?
Yes. Click a line to fix its text, or drag its edges on the timeline to adjust the timing. Every export uses your corrected version.
Do burned-in captions reduce video quality?
The video is encoded once more, at the resolution and quality of the original, with the captions drawn in. The difference is not visible in normal viewing.
How many credits do subtitles use?
One credit per minute of video, the same as a transcript. Exporting several formats from the same file costs nothing more.
