What Are Subtitles and How To Create Them Automatically?

by Julian Canlas

What are subtitles? If you want to make sure that your video content is modern, accessible for those hard and hearing and up to date, it’s essential to make sure that you add in subtitles and closed captions. Being able to add video subtitles online can help make your videos easier to understand which boosts content engagement. It's a win-win situation for you and your viewers.

At VEED, our simple, yet powerful, video editor lets you automatically create subtitles and translate them in a super quick way.

In this guide, we’ll be going over;

  • What subtitles actually are
  • Why it’s important to have subtitles
  • How to add subtitles with VEED
  • How to translate subtitles with VEED

Accessibility is a hugely important topic, and we hope this guide helps you out.

What Are Subtitles?

To start off with, let’s take a look at what subtitles actually are. Many people confuse them with closed captions, but it’s important to highlight the difference between the two.

Subtitles capture all there is on the dialogue and spoken language. Subtitles are mainly used for viewers who can hear that wish to view content in another language. They can be used to support viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, but this is not their main use. Normal subtitles might not include other audio effects.

Closed captions and open captions are mainly aimed at viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. They cover everything that goes on in a video, not only just the spoken word, including background noises. Closed captions can be separately added or disabled when watching a video. Open captions, on the other hand, are directly included to the video and can't be turned off.

Closed captioning is normally better than open captions. Open captions can be affected by a bad quality video, rendering it hard to read and disrupting the viewing experience, especially for foreign films. Closed captioning shows clearly regardless of the video's quality.

Both subtitles and closed caption files can be downloaded as separate text files (e.g. SRT or VTT) that can be uploaded to the video player for activation. These file formats have time indicators that allow the captions or subtitles to be insync with the audio of the video.

Why Is It Important To Have Subtitles?

Now that we’ve covered what subtitles actually are, let’s take a quick look at why videos with subtitles are better than those without for your engagement rate and ranking in search engines.

  • Subtitles can increase your video’s accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing viewers.
  • People often watch with their audio off. Videos with captions can get a deeper engagement rate for your videos.
  • Subtitles can help to increase engagement and comprehension.
  • Subtitles can help with reach and SEO. YouTube, Google, search engines and various social networks analyze captions to better understand how to rank and index your video content. This helps you boost your search rankings.
  • Watching foreign language films.

Generally speaking, if you make video content then it is imperative to make sure that you add in video subtitles online. They’re beneficial for every party, and there are a number of great online tools that can help with adding video subtitles online and polishing them up.

How To Add Subtitles With VEED

One of the most important tools that VEED has on offer is our subtitle tool. To help you out with adding video subtitles online, we’ve pulled together our top tips.

1) Upload your video

To begin the process, upload your video to VEED.

There are a number of file locations that VEED works well with. Our platform accepts content uploads from local files and your camera, YouTube video links and Dropbox, as well.

If you’ve already signed up for VEED, you can access your previous projects from the home page.

2) Add in subtitles

Next, head to the subtitle button in the left hand toolbar, and choose from the subtitle options available. You can pick from automatic subtitles, manual subtitles and subtitles uploaded from an external file.

VEED accepts a number of subtitle file formats, including SRT, ASS, VTT and SSA files. Do make sure to check out our other tools if you need help with this. For example, we have a VTT to SRT tool.

Make sure your region and language are correct for an accurate transcription.

3) Verify and check accuracy

Once you’ve picked the best subtitle option for your project, it’s good  to verify them and to double check whether they’re correct.

If you need to make any edits, head to the subtitles button in the left hand toolbar. You can change everything from the wording to the font, and even add extra features like effects or colors.

4) Download

You can download the auto subtitles in different subtitle file formats, namely VTT, SRT or TXT as closed captions add separately to your videos.

Finally, hit the export button in the top right corner when you’re ready to download your video file. It may take a few minutes to render, but the process will help to make your final creation look great.

If you need more help with subtitle work, do make sure to check out our YouTube channel.

How To Translate Subtitles from The Original Language

VEED can help with adding video subtitles online as we’ve covered, but our platform can help out translating subtitles, too. Here’s a quick 4-step tutorial to help out.

1) Upload your video

To get started with your translation, upload your video to VEED. As covered above, VEED accepts a wealth of different file formats.

You can work from an existing project on VEED if you’ve signed up for our services before, which is helpful.

2) Pick your subtitle option

Next, you’re going to want to add in subtitles so that you can translate them.

To get your subtitles added in, head to the left hand toolbar, and press the subtitle button. Here, you can choose from automatic subtitles, manual subtitles and subtitles uploaded from an external file.

3) Hit the translate button

Once you’ve picked your options, head back to subtitles and click the translate tab. Here, you can pick the language you want to translate your content into.

It’s important to make sure that you verify the accuracy and quality of your subtitle translation, of course. After all, your video with subtitles in different languages should have the same amount of care as in your original language.

If you need to make any edits, you can do so in the same manner as the above tutorial on subtitles. You can find everything you need in the Subtitles tab. You can add subtitle tracks in different languages.

4) Download

Under Options, you can download your caption files. Once all of these steps have been completed, you can hit the export button in the top right hand corner to start the download process.

When you’re downloading from VEED, you can download your masterpiece as MP4 files, or as GIFs. Both are great for video content projects.

Ready To Use VEED To Automatically Create Accurate Subtitles?

In this article, you've learned what subtitles, closed captions and open captions are. Overall, it’s essential to make sure that you find a great way of adding video subtitles online. Video with subtitles also get better engagement than without.

No matter if you’re making social media content, marketing materials or online tutorials, video accessibility for those who are hard of hearing or experiencing hearing loss should be one of the most important things at the forefront of your mind. Translating your subtitles can make them even more helpful.

If you’re looking to read more about online video editing and video accessibility, do make sure to read more of our content on our website. Of course, VEED is so much more than for adding and translating subtitle files. With our simple, yet powerful, video editor, you can add text to video, compress your video without losing quality for social media, add a separate audio file track, add a progress bar, and more.