Video Caption Generator With Styled, Burned-In Captions

Two kinds of caption generator

Search for a caption generator and you'll find tools that hand back very different things. Some give you a caption file, a list of timed lines in SRT or VTT, and leave attaching it to you. Others give you the video itself with captions drawn into every frame. Both start with speech recognition; they differ in what you can publish once they're done.

File-only generators

Output an SRT or VTT. Right for YouTube, Vimeo, course platforms and website players, where viewers switch captions on from a menu. You don't see the captions on your footage until you upload.

Caption-in-picture generators

Output a new video with the text burned in. Right for Reels, TikTok, WhatsApp, feed posts, ads and any player that ignores caption files. You fix the look, not the viewer's player.

This page

Does both from one session: an MP4 with burned-in captions, plus SRT and VTT exports of the same lines.

If the file is all you'll ever need, the AI subtitle generator is quicker, because it skips the preview and styling and goes straight to the download. How the two output types behave once published is laid out in embedded vs sidecar subtitles.

Generating captions for a video, start to finish

1. Open the editor and pick the video from your computer. MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM and MKV open, but not AVI.
2. Keep "Write the subtitles automatically with AI" ticked. Leave Subtitle language on "Same as spoken (auto-detect)" for captions in the video's own language, or choose one of the 21 languages to have them translated.
3. Sign in with Google when asked. Your browser pulls out the soundtrack and uploads only that; a progress strip shows the audio being read, sent, transcribed and timed.
4. Play the video and read the captions as they appear. Click a line in the list to correct a word, or drag its edges on the timeline when it shows up early or lingers.
5. Open Style, choose a preset and adjust size, colour and position against the preview.
6. Click Render video, check the summary, start the render, then Download video. Before closing the tab, use Export SRT or Export VTT if you also want the caption file.

The rendered copy keeps your video's resolution and frame rate, carries no watermark, and is named after the original with -subtitled added.

Decisions that change the result

Four choices made before rendering shape the finished video more than anything else.

• Caption language. Same as spoken gives captions that match the audio, which is what accessibility requires. A translated track helps viewers who don't speak the language, though its per-line timing is approximate because translated text is split by length.
• Look. Classic and YouTube suit talking heads and tutorials; Social Media and Creator are built for short vertical clips; High Contrast holds up over busy footage. Subtitle styles shows each preset side by side.
• Position. Captions sit at the bottom by default. On vertical clips the app's buttons and description cover the lower part of the frame, so switch on "Show safe area" and lift the captions until they clear it.
• A file as well as a video. If the same video is going to YouTube, export the SRT for YouTube's captions menu and post the burned-in MP4 to feeds that don't read caption files.

Where generated captions fall short

Speech recognition gets most clearly spoken words right and stumbles in predictable places: people's names, product names, numbers read aloud, two voices at once, and speech under loud music. Plan on one full watch-through before you render. Fixing auto-generated subtitles has an order of work that surfaces the worst errors first.

Other limits come from the design rather than the accuracy:

• Each caption is a single static line; nothing moves or highlights as words are spoken.
• The AI doesn't name speakers or describe sounds such as music or laughter. Type those in yourself if your audience needs them.
• One style applies to every caption in the video.
• AI captions work on videos up to 2 hours long.
• Rendering runs in Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox on a computer. On a phone you can edit and export caption files, but don't count on rendering there.

Three videos, three outputs

New accounts receive 100 free credits at sign-in, and registered accounts get 10 more each day, so all three of these fit inside the free allowance.

After you download

The rendered MP4 is an ordinary video file and uploads anywhere video does. A few things are worth knowing before you publish it:

• Your lines and style stay in this browser as a draft for up to five videos. To fix a typo, open the same video again, correct the line and render a fresh copy instead of starting over.
• Burned-in captions can't be switched off or edited inside the rendered file, so keep the original. It's the one to use if you ever need a version without captions or with different ones.
• If a platform offers to add its own automatic captions during upload, decline for this video, or viewers may see two sets of text.

Platform layouts differ enough to deserve their own pages: captions for TikTok and subtitles for YouTube videos. When you want the speech as a document rather than on screen, video to text gives you a transcript instead.

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