Generally, whether you watch movies, TV shows, or some other content in your target foreign language, you want to watch it with subtitles rather than without them. Generally, foreign-language subtitles are a marginally more powerful research aid than native-language.
If you want to automatically get subtitles for movies in the VLC Media Player, you can easily do this with the aid of a VLSub VLC add-on. It is the top valued add-on due to its utility for the player. VLC is a free platform and open source multimedia player. It is an application that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
How to Add Subtitles or Captions to Videos
For adding captions and subtitles to video using VLC media player. There are following two ways:
- You can either embed captions into your own video file or open a file of sidecar captions next to your video file. Actually, choosing the right technique depends on your target.
- Opening a file of sidecar captions helps you to display it next to the recording. At the beginning of your editing process, use this tool to review subtitles and captions. For players/platforms that need subtitles to be uploaded into a separate file, this is also the preferred choice.
How to Add Subtitles by Embed Captions
You may not be aware of this but simply downloading a file online makes it very easy to add subtitles to any VLC video. But if you happen to have a file containing a movie or TV show, you’ll probably be able to find it online. Let’s take a look on the steps to get it done.
You can export videos with embedded captions from an editor like Adobe Premiere Pro, iMovie or Ardent Media Composer to permanently add subtitles to a video. They will be automatically allowed on any player, including VLC, this way.
With Handbrake, a free open-source video transcoder, you can also encode the SRT file. Order a Rev technical caption file and download it in the SRT file format to do so. On your Mac, open the Handbrake video, then go to the Subtitles tab. Expand the Tracks drop-down menu and pick Add External SRT. You can now, in several languages, add as many subtitle files as you want.
There is also an option to link your subtitle file directly into the VLC to your video. However its encoding choices are limited as this is a media player and not an editing tool.
- Go to the File tab to encode subtitles in VLC on a Mac, then pick Convert and Stream:
- A dialogue box will open, showing the video file you have selected. By clicking Open Media, add the subtitle file. You can then pick your preferred profile from the Select Profile section.
- To pick the additional subtitle options, click on Customize. A new dialogue box will open, enabling you to select the type of a subtitle file. Only two choices are available: DVB Subtitle, and T.140. Select DVB Subtitles, then check the box next to the Video Subtitles Overlay box.
- Click on Apply, then select Save File, then choose Browse.
And you’re all done.
How to Add Subtitles by Automatically Open a Sidecar Captions File in VLC Media Player
You only need to follow two basic conventions to automatically open a sidecar caption file in the VLC Media Player.
- Name all video and subtitle files in exactly the same way first it’s okay to have different extensions for them).
- Secondly, in the same folder, put them. It’s that! VLC will automatically recognise the existence of a related subtitle file by opening the video file, and will open it at the same time. You can do this for iOS, iPhone and Android on VLC as well.
The ability to manually pick the subtitle file also exists. To do so,
- Open the VLC video file. Go to the Subtitles tab and choose ‘Add Subtitle File.’
- To show your captions/subtitles, select the file from the resulting dialogue box. Go to the Subtitles Track to switch between languages and pick the preferred option.
- Check the process at the end of this article if you are still unable to access your subtitles.
How to Hardcode Subtitles VLC
Hardcoding subtitles into a video implies that no matter what, they will appear during playback. Unlike other ways of subtitling, which during playback can be freely toggled on and off, videos with hardcoded subtitles do not allow this kind of independence. When a video has “burned” subtitles in it, regardless of where you play it it will look the same. The method of hardcoding subtitles includes writing into the video the subtitle track.
There are two ways to hardcode subtitles into our videos:
- With free software.
- And with the assistance of a professional online service.
Before starting the process download vlc media player or click on this link. We would also require a subtitle srt file and video to add subtitles.
- Open VLC Media Player and after this add your video.
- Add the subtitles in VLC media player you want to “add” into the video
- Select a destination for the stream output file.
- Transcoding subtitle options are activated.
- And wait as the process gets completed.
What Should be Done When VLC Subtitles are Not Working?
Maybe the subtitles on your machine are not encoded properly. In terms of specifics, often if subtitles do not use a particular format or codec, such as UTF-8 text encoding, VLC will fail to display them.
Secondly, you will still not be able to play the subtitle in VLC if you have not set the right font in VLC, since the incorrect font may not be compatible with the player’s settings.
Last of all, another potential explanation for the problem that VLC subtitles do not show is that the subtitle files that you downloaded are broken, which VLC and probably any other media players do not acknowledge.
Three steps can be taken to solve this problem:
- Encode the subtitles as UTF-8.
- Change the font of the subtitles in VLC.
- Try downloading the subtitles again.
