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Subtitles Explained: SRT, VTT and How to Add Them to a Video

Published 7 October 2026 · All guides

Subtitles make videos usable in noisy places, quiet offices and other languages, and they are essential for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. They are also simpler than they look: most subtitle files are plain text you can open in any editor.

Soft subtitles and burned-in subtitles

Soft subtitles are a separate track or file that the player draws on top of the video. Viewers can turn them on or off, switch languages and often change the text size. They do not touch the picture, so you can fix a typo without re-encoding the video.

Burned-in (hard) subtitles are painted into the video frames themselves. They always show and work on any device, but they cannot be turned off, resized or corrected without re-encoding from the original.

The SRT format

SubRip (.srt) is the most common subtitle format. Each subtitle is a numbered block with a start and end time and one or two lines of text:

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,200
Welcome back to the channel.

2
00:00:04,500 --> 00:00:07,000
Today we are looking at video formats.

Times are hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds. Leave a blank line between blocks and save the file as UTF-8 text so accented and non-Latin characters display correctly.

The WebVTT format

WebVTT (.vtt) is the format web browsers use for subtitles. It looks almost the same as SRT, with two differences: the file begins with the line WEBVTT, and milliseconds are separated with a dot instead of a comma (00:00:01.000). WebVTT can also position text and apply simple styling. Converting SRT to VTT is mostly a matter of adding the header and swapping commas for dots in the timestamps.

Adding subtitles on a computer

  • To watch: put the subtitle file in the same folder as the video with the same name — holiday.mp4 and holiday.srt. Players such as VLC load it automatically. You can also drag the subtitle file onto the playing video.
  • To embed as a soft track: MKV files hold any number of subtitle tracks easily. MP4 supports text subtitles too, though not every player shows them.
  • To burn in: use HandBrake's Subtitles tab, import the SRT and tick Burn In. See our HandBrake guide.

Adding subtitles on a phone

Many Android video players, including VLC for Android, let you pick a subtitle file while the video plays — usually from a speech-bubble or "CC" button. Keep the subtitle file next to the video in the same folder so it is easy to find.

Writing good subtitles

  • Keep each subtitle to two lines of around 40 characters.
  • Leave each one on screen long enough to read — at least a second, more for longer lines.
  • Break lines at natural pauses, not in the middle of a phrase.
  • For accessibility, include important sounds in brackets, such as [door slams].

Respect translation rights

Subtitles you write for your own videos are yours to share. Subtitles for films and shows are translations of someone else's script, so the same rules apply as for the video itself. Our copyright basics guide explains more.