Captions & on-screen text
Caption burn-in: definition and examples
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
- 1When the destination platform does not support a separate subtitle or caption file upload.
- 2When you need captions to appear identically across every player, embed, and repost.
- 3When the video will be downloaded and reshared outside the original platform.
- 4When you want caption styling and position locked to match the brand's visual identity.
- 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
- 1Rendering styled caption text directly into a vertical cut before posting to a platform that strips sidecar tracks.
- 2Locking caption position and font into a repurposed ad clip that will run across multiple placements.
- 3Preserving caption visibility on a product demo video shared as a file attachment in outreach emails.
FAQ
Is caption burn-in the same as open captions?
Burn-in is the process; open captions are the result. You burn captions in to produce open captions. The terms are often used interchangeably, but the distinction is useful when you are describing a workflow step versus describing what the viewer sees.
Make on-brand short-form video from the footage you already have.