Turn a video into an SRT file

How to generate the file

1. Upload the video

   MP4, MOV, AVI, or MKV up to 500 MB, or a link from a supported source.

2. Pick a language

   Choose the original language for a straight transcript, or another of the 30 languages for a translated subtitle file.

3. Download the SRT

   Every job returns an SRT in the original spoken language and one in the language you chose, plus plain TXT versions of both.

What is inside an SRT

Each block is a sequence number, a timing line, one or two lines of text, and a blank line. Timestamps use hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds separated by a comma. See what is an SRT file for the format in detail, including the mistakes that make a file fail to load.

What an SRT is good for

• Uploading alongside a video anywhere that accepts subtitle files, so viewers can switch them on and off.
• Feeding a translation. An SRT keeps the timings, so a translated file drops straight back onto the same video.
• Making the spoken content readable as text, which is how a video ends up findable by search at all.
• Editing. It is plain text, so you can fix a name in any text editor without touching the video.

What an SRT cannot do

• It carries almost no styling. Position, font, and colour are the player's decision, which is why platforms that accept SRT all look slightly different.
• It is not read by most social feeds, which expect the text to be in the picture instead. That is what burning in is for.
• It has no speaker labels or sound descriptions by convention, so it is a subtitle format rather than a full captioning one. See subtitles vs captions.

Before you publish the file

• Save it as UTF-8. Any other encoding turns accented and non-Latin characters into noise on someone else's machine.
• Check the first and last block against the video. A file that is off from the start usually has an offset problem rather than a drift problem.
• Look at your longest lines. If a line takes longer to read than it stays on screen, it needs splitting.