Dear Slow Clap: What are SRT files and how do you use them in a video?
Dear Slow Clap,
We recently had some captions made for a video that we produced. The vendor that made the captions sent us back an “SRT” file. What is that? How do we get our captions onto our video? Please help!
– Scratching-my-head Project Manager
Dear Scratching-my-head Project Manager,
Thanks for your question! A SRT is a SubRip Subtitle file, which is one of the most common caption file formats for video content. A SRT is essentially a plain text file that contains not only your captions, but timing and text formatting information relating to how and when your captions should appear on screen.
In most cases, if you receive your captions as an SRT from a trusted transcription provider (and assuming they are accurate and error-free) they are ready to be added to your video right away. Depending on your specific workflow, and whether you prefer for your captions to be open or closed, how you add them to your video may differ slightly.
The first, and most common way we work with SRT’s here at Slow Clap, is attaching the SRT file to the video directly through the video editing software, Adobe Premiere Pro. After we complete the editing on a project, we import the corresponding SRT directly into Premiere to “marry” the captions file to the video. A huge advantage of this workflow is that the editor can now freely make edits to not only the caption text itself, but the font style and size, text placement and formatting, and even adjust timing. Another advantage of this method is that it allows you to create a deliverable with “open” captions, which refers to captions that are permanently “baked-in” to your video and cannot be turned off by the viewer at any point. Although we’ve been referring to our work in Premiere for this example, other industry standard video editing software such as Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, and DaVinci Resolve also feature many of the same capabilities.
The second, and a common way many of our clients use SRT’s, is attaching the SRT file to the video directly through the video player or host website. Video sharing sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook, all support SRT files as a compatible file format to add captions to your videos. It’s important to keep in mind that because the captions have been added to your video at this stage, the captions are not permanently “baked-in” to your video and are thus referred to as “closed” captions, and can be turned on or off by the viewer at any time.
Ultimately, your workflow and deliverable specs will determine which of these two methods is best for you, but we do recommend the first method as it allows for more flexibility and full creative control over the look and feel of your captions.
Small side note: because an SRT file is essentially a plain text file, it can be edited to some degree via your computer’s default text editor, regardless of your operating system.
However, we strongly suggest only making very minor edits like removing a small typo or single word through this method since the timing information of your captions can be thrown off-sync with the audio in your video. Better to ask your trusted video pro to make any final edits to your captions inside the editing software before exporting your deliverables. That way you simply create a brand new SRT or video deliverable with your final changes, and you’re ready to upload.
Hope this has been another helpful guide for you!
Alexander at Slow Clap
Further readings
- Closed Captions vs. Subtitles: The Difference | Rev
- Open Captions vs. Closed Captions: What's the Difference?
- Subtitles, Closed Captions, and Open Captions: What's the Difference? | Ben Myers
- Closed Captions (CC) vs Subtitles | Subly Blog
Other Dear Slow Clap blogs
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