Burned-in Captions and Subtitles

Burned-in captions and subtitles (also called open captions) are permanently displayed on your video, so viewers can’t turn them off. A standard captions or subtitles order gives you a sidecar file, such as SRT or VTT, that you upload with your video to the platform where it’s hosted, and viewers can turn it on or off. Add Burned-In Captions or Burned-In Subtitles to your order to also receive an MP4 video with the text burned in. Burned-in captions cost an additional $0.30 per video minute, and burned-in subtitles cost an additional $0.30 per video minute per language.

 

In this article

Order Burned-In Captions and Subtitles

Add to a New Order

  1. Open the checkout page for the service you need: Human Captions or Global Subtitles.
  2. Add your files.

  3. Check the box next to Burned-In Captions for a captions order, or Burned-In Subtitles for a subtitles order.

    Caption checkout add-ons with the Burned-In Captions (+$0.30/min) box checked, below Premium Captions and Rush My Order.
  4. Complete checkout.

 

Add to an Existing Order

  1. Go to Order History in the left menu of your account.
  2. Click the order number to open the order details page.

  3. At the bottom of the page, click Order Burned-In Captions.

    Order Burned-In Captions button at the bottom of the order details page.
  4. Follow the on-screen steps to add the add-on to your order.

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Download Burned-in Captions and Subtitles

After your order is complete, you can download your burned-in video from the Captions and Subtitles Editor or from your order history. Burned-in videos don’t download instantly like caption files. Rev creates the video when you request it, which takes about one-fifth of the video’s length (a 10-minute video takes about 2 minutes), then emails you a download link. The link works for 7 days, and you can request the video again at any time.

 

Download From the Editor

  1. On your Workspace page, select the file to open it in the Captions and Subtitles Editor.
  2. Click Download in the top right.

 

Download From Your Order History

  1. Go to Order History in the left menu of your account.
  2. Click the order number to open the order details page.
  3. Click Download next to the file.

 

Choose Your Download Options

  1. Under Output file format(s), remove .srt so only video is selected.

  2. Under Burned-in video captions appearance, select Use Default Styling, or select Customize to change how the text looks (see Customize Burned-In Captions and Subtitles).

    Download Captions window with .srt and video selected under Output file format(s), and Use Default Styling selected under Burned-in video captions appearance.
  3. Click Download, or Next if you selected Customize.
  4. Check your email for the download link.

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Customize Burned-in Captions and Subtitles

You can change how your burned-in text looks before you download the video. In the download options, select Customize under Burned-in video captions appearance, then click Next.

Download Captions window with Customize selected under Burned-in video captions appearance and a Next button.

 

The Customize Appearance for Burned-In Video Captions window shows a preview of your video with your styling. Set your Text Options and Background, then click Download. Your styling applies only to the burned-in video, not to your other caption formats, and the final video may look slightly different from the preview.
 

Customize Appearance for Burned-In Video Captions window with a video preview, Text Options (font, size, bold, italic, color and position), Background options (None, Outline and Wrap), a Save as default styling setting checkbox, and Back and Download buttons.

 

Text Options

Text Options toolbar with font and font size menus and Bold, Italic, font color and position buttons.

Font: Arial, Noto Sans, Nunito Sans, Open Sans, Poppins, Roboto, Futura, Helvetica Neue, Lucida Grande, Source Sans Pro, STIX Two Text, Times New Roman, Tiresias Infofont, Verdana or Ubuntu. For Global Subtitles, not every font is available in every language.

Font size: 8 to 30 points.

Bold and italic: Click B or I.

Font color: Choose black, white or yellow, or enter a hex color code.

Font color menu with white, black and yellow swatches and a hex code field showing #FFFFFF.

Position: Place the text at the top, middle or bottom of the video, and align it left, center or right. The position applies to every caption in the video. You can’t place individual captions separately.

Animation of the example caption moving to the top, middle and bottom of the preview video and aligning left, center and right.

 

Background

Background style: None (no background), Outline (the text is outlined in the selected color) or Wrap (each caption sits in a box of the selected color).

Background options with None, Outline and Wrap buttons, Wrap selected.

Background color: Choose black, white or grey, or enter a hex color code.

Background color menu with white, black and grey swatches and a hex code field showing #000000.

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Default Appearance

By default, burned-in captions and subtitles use white Noto Sans text on a black Wrap background at 50% opacity, sized to fit your video. To change the default, update Burned-In Caption Styling in your account preferences (see Preferences & Notifications). New defaults apply to orders you place afterward and don’t change active or completed orders.

You can also check Save as default styling setting in the Customize Appearance window to make your current styling the default.

Save as default styling setting checkbox.

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Burn In Captions Yourself

If you’d rather burn captions into your video yourself, download your captions as an SRT file and add them to your video with video editing software. Rev support can’t help with third-party software, but these tools can burn in captions:

  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Apple Final Cut Pro
  • Vegas Creative Software
  • HandBrake (free)

This video shows how to add captions to a video in HandBrake:

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