Rendered on your device
The export runs in your browser tab. The video file itself never has to be uploaded to be encoded.
Burn in subtitles
Burn subtitles into your video so they show on every screen.
Burned-in subtitles are drawn into the frames of the video itself, so no player, app or viewer setting can hide or restyle them.
No credit card · 2 free minutes every month · MP4, SRT and VTT export
Why it matters
A subtitle file only works when whatever plays the video knows to load it. Many of the places video gets watched never will, so the only subtitles guaranteed to appear are the ones that are part of the picture.
Burning in, also called hardcoding or adding open captions, does exactly that. AutoCap renders your corrected, styled subtitles into a new MP4 inside the browser, on your own device, at up to 2K and with the source video's frame rate and audio kept.
What you get
Open captions, rendered where you edit them.
Legible at up to 1440p
Export at up to 2K, so even small caption text stays readable when the video is watched on a large screen.
Frame rate and sound preserved
The MP4 keeps the frame rate of your source file and carries its audio across, so motion and sound match what you uploaded.
A look that can't drift
Font, colors, animation and position are fixed into the frames, so the subtitles look identical on every platform that plays the file.
Your brand's typeface
Upload a custom font on a paid plan when the subtitles have to match the rest of your brand.
How it works
Hardcode subtitles in four steps.
- 01
Upload the clip
Add the MP4 or MOV you want subtitled, and its audio is transcribed with a time on every word.
- 02
Make the text final
Burned-in words can't be edited after export, so correct every name and typo before rendering.
- 03
Set the look
Choose a style, then the font, colors and position the subtitles will keep for good.
- 04
Render the MP4
Export in the browser and download a video with the subtitles drawn into every frame.
When burning in is the right call
Burn subtitles in when you can't control how the video will be played. Social feeds, messaging apps and videos embedded in slides may give viewers no caption toggle at all, and a burned-in line needs none.
It's also the answer when the subtitles are part of the design. Word-by-word highlights, brand fonts and captions placed beside a speaker all depend on you deciding exactly how the text looks, and a subtitle file hands that decision to the player.
- Short-form social video, where the caption style is part of the post
- Clips shared in messaging apps or dropped into presentations
- Videos that other people will download and re-upload
- Any video whose text must look the same on every screen
What you give up, and how to get it back
Hardcoded subtitles can't be switched off or resized by the viewer. Someone who normally enlarges captions in their player's settings gets whatever size you rendered.
They also stop being text. Words drawn into the image can't be read aloud by a screen reader, copied, or translated like a transcript. If the video will also live on YouTube, a website or a course platform, upload a subtitle file beside it; paid plans export SRT and VTT from the same transcript.
And they can't be patched. If a typo turns up after you've posted, the fix is to correct it and render the video again.
How the browser render works
Your video file stays on your device. AutoCap sends only the audio away for transcription; the render happens locally, drawing each subtitle onto the frames and writing a new MP4.
The output keeps the source frame rate, so a 24 fps film and a 60 fps screen recording each come out at their own rate, and the original audio is carried across. Resolution goes up to 2K (1440p), so a 4K source is exported at 1440p.
Questions
Good to know.
Is burning in the same as hardcoding subtitles?
Yes. Burned-in subtitles, hardcoded subtitles and open captions are three names for text rendered into the video image rather than stored in a separate file.
Can viewers turn burned-in subtitles off?
No, and that's the trade-off for guaranteed display. If viewers need the choice, publish the video without them and attach an SRT or VTT file instead.
Does burning in subtitles reduce video quality?
Adding subtitles to the picture means the video has to be re-encoded, whichever tool does it. AutoCap exports at up to 2K (1440p) with the source frame rate and audio kept.
Can I burn in an SRT file I already have?
No. AutoCap doesn't import subtitle files; it creates the subtitles from the video's own audio, and every word can be edited before you render.
Can I burn in subtitles on the free plan?
Yes, for clips up to 60 seconds, with a watermark on the exported video and 2 minutes of transcription each month. Paid plans from $9 / €9 a month export without the watermark.
Try it on the next video you post.
The free plan needs no card. Upload a clip, check the captions yourself, and only upgrade when you want the watermark gone.