Guides · 4 min read · Updated 2026-09-19
Hardcoded vs soft subtitles: when to burn them in
There are two ways to put subtitles on a video. You can draw them into the picture, or you can ship them alongside it as a separate file the player shows on top. Which one is right depends mostly on where the video is going.
Hardcoded (burned-in) subtitles
The text becomes part of every frame. It looks identical on every device and every platform, it survives being downloaded and re-shared, and you control the font, size and position completely.
The cost is flexibility: nobody can turn them off, change the language, or resize them, and fixing a typo means exporting the video again.
Soft subtitles (a separate track)
The subtitles live in their own file — usually SRT or VTT — and the player draws them. Viewers can switch them on or off, choose a language when several are available, and in many players change the size.
The cost is that they only work where the platform supports subtitle tracks, and they can be lost when a video is downloaded or re-uploaded elsewhere.
How to choose
- Short-form social video (TikTok, Reels, Shorts): burn them in — many feeds autoplay muted and do not show tracks.
- YouTube and course platforms: upload a track per language so viewers can choose.
- A video that will be shared around as a file: burn them in so they stay with it.
- Several languages for one video: tracks, one per language.
Doing either with SubFlow
Every project can be exported both ways. Download the subtitles as SRT (or VTT and a transcript on the web), or render a video with the subtitles burned in — original, translated, or both languages together. In the Android app, the burned-in video is rendered on your phone, so the video itself is never uploaded.
Try it on your own video
30 free processing minutes every month, no credit card. Transcribe, translate into 99+ languages, review both side by side, and export.
Create subtitles free →Questions
Can I remove hardcoded subtitles from a video?
Not cleanly — they are part of the image. Keep your original video file, and re-export it with corrected subtitles instead.
Do burned-in subtitles reduce video quality?
Burning in means re-encoding the video. A good export keeps the quality close to the original; SubFlow's paid plans export in Full HD without a watermark.
Can I burn in two languages at once?
Yes. A bilingual export shows the original line and its translation together on each caption.