Burned-in captions

Closed captions are a separate text track, such as an SRT file, that a player can show or hide. Burned-in captions are part of the pixels: once rendered, they travel with the video everywhere, including platforms and players that don’t support caption files.

On short-form platforms, burned-in captions are usually styled: large type, a few words at a time, often with the word currently being spoken highlighted. That “word-by-word” or karaoke style follows the voice closely and doubles as a visual rhythm.

Many people watch short videos with the sound off, and burned-in captions are the only caption format guaranteed to show on every app and every reshare. They also keep viewers anchored when the narration contains technical terms or numbers.

The downsides: they can’t be turned off, translated or restyled after the fact, and they take up screen space. Place them inside the safe zone, clear of the platform’s bottom interface, and keep them from covering key visuals. Pair them with a closed caption file when platforms support it.

Narration: “Encryption scrambles your message so only the right key can read it.” Burned-in captions show “Encryption scrambles” then “your message” then “so only the right key” then “can read it”, with each word lighting up as it’s spoken, placed in the lower-middle area of the frame, above where the app shows the account name.