Add Subtitles to a Dubbed Video

Why a dub still wants subtitles

Dubbing replaces the voice, but plenty of viewers never hear it:

• Feeds start videos muted, so the new voice goes unheard until someone taps, while subtitles carry the message from the first second.
• Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers in the new language get nothing from the dub alone.
• Language learners and bilingual households like to hear one language and read another.
• Reviewers checking a translation spot errors faster on screen than by ear.
• Synthetic voices sometimes stumble on names and brands; the subtitles show the correct spelling, as AI voices mispronouncing names discusses.

When to pick one, the other or both is covered in subtitles vs dubbing. This page assumes you want both.

Pick the language on screen

The dub's language

The words on screen match what viewers hear. The right default for sound-off feeds and accessibility, and what the mydubly hand-off gives you.

The original language

Viewers hear the dub and read the source. Useful for learners and for checking that the dub says what the speaker said.

A third language

One video serving two audiences, one listening and one reading. Make these subtitles from the original speech rather than from the dub, so the text is translated once instead of twice; pivot-language translation explains why.

The editor draws one set of lines. You can type two languages into one subtitle, one above the other, but that doubles the reading load; dual-language subtitles weighs when it's worth it.

What the Burn subtitles button hands over

After a dub finishes in the Video tab of the mydubly home page, the results include a Burn subtitles button next to the downloads. Clicking it switches the page to its "AI Subtitles & Burning" tab and loads two things:

• The video. When the results include a translated video, which is your original picture merged on your device with the dubbed audio, that file is sent. When the device couldn't build that merged file and the results offer only the translated audio, the button sends your original video, with its original soundtrack. Play a few seconds before rendering to hear which one you have.
• The subtitles. The SRT from the results, in the language you dubbed into: the same file that Download subtitles saves.

Nothing new is uploaded for the hand-off, and editing and rendering cost no credits. If the editor already holds unsaved changes, it asks before replacing them; if it is in the middle of a render, the request is skipped, so wait until the render finishes and click again. When a saved draft exists for the same file, the editor offers "Restore draft" or "Keep new subtitles". The merged video can be an MKV when its codecs don't fit in MP4; the editor opens MKV and always renders an MP4.

The button exists only in the home page's results. The editor on this page doesn't receive hand-offs, so here you open the downloaded files yourself.

From a finished dub to a subtitled MP4

1. Dub the video on the mydubly home page and wait for the results panel.
2. Click Burn subtitles. Or, to work on this page instead, click Download translated video and Download subtitles in the results, choose that video in the editor here and load the SRT with Import SRT / VTT.
3. Play the opening, a passage in the middle and the ending with the sound on, checking that each line appears while its sentence is being spoken.
4. Correct wording and stretch or trim lines on the timeline where they end before the voice does. Split any line that is too long to read in time.
5. Open Style, choose a preset and keep the subtitles clear of faces and on-screen graphics.
6. Click Render video, check that the summary lists the audio track you expect, render, then click Download video.

Keeping the voice and the text in step

In a mydubly dub, the voice and the subtitle file both come from the same translation, so the words should largely agree. Two things can still pull them apart:

• Edits. Fixing a word in the subtitles doesn't change what the voice says. Correcting a mistranslation on screen alone leaves the dub saying the old version, which attentive viewers will notice; for a serious error, fix the translation and dub again.
• Timing. The subtitle lines follow the original speech, while a dubbed sentence may run slightly longer or shorter than the one it replaces. Watch for lines that vanish before the voice finishes and drag their right edges.

Translations also tend to run longer than the source, so the editor's warnings for lines over 42 characters or too fast to read appear more often on dubs. Text expansion in translation explains why and how to trim.

Subtitling a dub made elsewhere

The editor works on any dubbed file it can open: MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM or MKV.

• With a subtitle file. If the dubbing tool or studio supplied an SRT or VTT in the dub's language, import it. Check it against the final mix, since a script prepared before the edit may no longer match.
• Without one. Turn on AI subtitles and let the speech recognition transcribe the dubbed voice like any other speech. Clear synthetic voices usually transcribe well, but names and terms still need a check. It costs 1 credit per minute of video with a 5-credit minimum, so an 8-minute dub costs 8 credits (0.8¢).
• In another language. Set "Subtitle language" before the run to translate into any of the 21 languages, or run AI on the original video instead if you want subtitles translated from the source.
• With old subtitles in the picture. If the source already had burned-in subtitles in the original language, "Hide subtitles already in the video" blurs that band so your new lines can sit on top. It blurs rather than removes; hiding burned-in subtitles shows how to size the band.

Languages, voices and where to dub

mydubly's dubbing voices cover 19 of the 21 languages; Czech and Vietnamese aren't among them, so for those audiences subtitles carry the translation on their own, and burning translated subtitles is the page for that. To make a dub in the first place, start at AI dubbing or the video translator, or go straight to a language pair such as translating video into Spanish or into Hindi. How to dub a video with AI walks through the whole process. For a subtitle file without a dub, the AI subtitle generator and translated subtitles produce SRT and VTT downloads.

About the subtitle editor on this page

Opens

MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV videos your browser can decode

Subtitles from

AI (from the speech, optionally translated into one of 21 languages), an SRT or VTT file, or typing them in

You download

An MP4 with the subtitles drawn into the picture at the original resolution and frame rate, plus SRT and VTT files

Cost

Editing, styling, rendering and SRT/VTT export are free, with no account and no watermark. AI subtitles cost 1 credit per minute (5-credit minimum per video); signing in with Google gives 100 free credits and accounts get 10 free credits a day

Privacy

The video never leaves your device and is rendered in your browser. Only for AI subtitles is the audio sent, over HTTPS, and it is deleted within 30 minutes of delivery

Rendering needs

Chrome or Edge 94+, Safari 16.4+, or Firefox 130+ on a computer. Editing and SRT/VTT export work in any current browser