Caption burn-in

What is Caption burn-in?

Caption burn-in is the process of permanently rendering caption text into the video frames at the pixel level, producing what are also called open captions or hard-coded captions. Because the text is part of the image itself, it shows up consistently on every platform and player, and viewers cannot turn it off.

When you'd use it

1. 1When the destination platform does not support a separate subtitle or caption file upload.
2. 2When you need captions to appear identically across every player, embed, and repost.
3. 3When the video will be downloaded and reshared outside the original platform.
4. 4When you want caption styling and position locked to match the brand's visual identity.
5. 5When the clip auto-plays on mute and a togglable caption track would not show by default.

Example

A creator filming a talking-head video generates auto captions in their editor, corrects the transcript, sets a bold sans-serif typeface at 80% screen width centered at 70% frame height, and exports. The resulting MP4 displays those captions on every platform without any additional upload steps.

Use cases

1. 1Rendering styled caption text directly into a vertical cut before posting to a platform that strips sidecar tracks.
2. 2Locking caption position and font into a repurposed ad clip that will run across multiple placements.
3. 3Preserving caption visibility on a product demo video shared as a file attachment in outreach emails.

FAQ

Related terms