Burn Subtitles into Video (Free, Browser-Local Hardcoding)

Drop your video or audio file here

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Supports video and audio files up to 2048MB

About Burn Subtitles into Video

This page burns subtitles with the WebCodecs encoder built into your browser, locally in the tab. Drop the video, generate the transcript, fix and style the captions, then click Burn in. The result is a fresh MP4 with the captions rendered onto every frame they appear in. The output is H.264 video with AAC audio where the browser supports it, which is the combination that uploads cleanly to every social platform, with a VP9 and Opus fallback in browsers that cannot encode H.264.

When to choose burn-in over a soft subtitle track: TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts all underweight opt-in captions, so burn-in is the safe choice. When to skip burn-in: longform YouTube where the CC button works fine and viewers may want a translation; embedded video on a website where you want to load alternate languages via the HTML5 track element.

When this fits

Vertical short-form social

TikTok, Reels, and Shorts all hide or strip opt-in captions on mobile playback. Burning them in is the only way to guarantee viewers see them.

Embedded videos on third-party sites

When you do not control the player, you cannot guarantee an SRT file will be loaded. Burned captions survive the embed because they are pixels.

Download-and-share workflows

AirDrop, Slack uploads, and email attachments all strip caption tracks. Burned-in captions are part of the file and survive the transfer.

Older devices and TVs

Smart TVs and older media players often lack reliable caption track support. Burned captions work everywhere a video plays at all.

How to burn subtitles into a video

1 Drop the video

Upload the source MP4 or MOV. The bytes stay in your browser.

2 Generate the transcript

Let Whisper auto-transcribe, then fix any words it got wrong in the inline editor.

3 Style the captions

Pick font, color, size, position, and background pill. The preview shows the final look.

4 Burn in to MP4

Click Burn in. Wait for the export (roughly 1x to 2x of video duration). Download the captioned MP4.

Frequently asked questions

What does "burn in" mean for subtitles?

It means rendering the subtitle text directly onto the video frames during export. The captions become part of the video pixels rather than a separate track, so they appear automatically wherever the video plays, with no caption-enabled player required.

Can I turn off burned-in subtitles later?

No. Once captions are burned into the video frames, they cannot be removed without re-encoding from the original source. If you might want to turn captions off later, export an SRT instead and attach it as a sidecar file.

Does burning subtitles in lower the video quality?

Slightly. Re-encoding with H.264 at sensible bitrates is mostly transparent, but you do incur one generation of compression loss. For most social and web use cases the difference is invisible. For archival or broadcast use, keep an uncompressed master alongside the burned version.

How long does burn-in take?

Roughly 1x to 2x of the video duration on a recent laptop, depending on resolution. A 60-second clip burns in around 1 to 2 minutes. A 10-minute clip takes 10 to 20 minutes. Mobile devices are noticeably slower.

Can I burn in subtitles from an existing SRT file?

Not on this page, which has no SRT import. For an existing subtitle file, use the Subtitles and Text tool at /subtitles, which takes an SRT and burns it in. This page is for generating the captions from the audio first.

Burn Subtitles into Video