Videos · Compared
Burned in captions vs closed captions: what is the difference?
Burned in captions, also called open captions, are text drawn into the video picture itself, so they appear on every screen and cannot be switched off. Closed captions are a separate timed text track, usually a file, that the player shows over the video, which viewers can turn on or off and editors can change without exporting again.
The choice decides who controls the words on screen: the person who made the video or the person watching it. It also decides how much work a typo, a translation or a new platform will cost later.
Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder
5 min read · Published
| Burned in (open) | Closed | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the text lives | Rendered into the video frames | A separate timed text track or file the player draws |
| Viewer control | Always visible, cannot be hidden | Can be turned on or off by the viewer |
| Fixing a typo | Edit the project and export the video again | Edit the text file and upload it again |
| Languages | One per video file | Several tracks can sit on one video |
| Styling | Whatever the maker designed, fixed | Depends on the format and player; YouTube reads no style markup in SRT and only bold, italic and underline in WebVTT |
| Where it works | Anywhere the video plays | Only where the player accepts a caption file, such as SRT on LinkedIn ads |
Pixels or a track
The difference is where the words live. Burned in text becomes part of each frame during export, exactly like a title or a logo, so every copy of the file carries it and no player can remove it. Closed captions travel beside the video as timed text, and the player decides whether to draw them. The W3C describes most captions as closed, able to be hidden or shown by the viewer, and open captions as the kind that are always displayed. Either form, when done properly, should carry the speech and the non speech sounds a viewer needs to follow the video, not only the dialogue.
How each reaches the screen
Burned in captions are designed once: font, size, colour, background and position are chosen by the maker and fixed at render. Closed captions start as a caption file uploaded alongside the video. YouTube accepts many formats, from basic SubRip files, which must be plain UTF-8 text with no style markup recognised, to WebVTT, where positioning works but styling is limited to bold, italic and underline. LinkedIn video ads take captions only as an SRT file containing text, with custom formatting such as font colours unsupported. The platform then renders the words in its own style, which the viewer can often adjust.
When each is the right choice
Burned in captions suit short social clips, adverts and anything likely to be downloaded, reposted or embedded somewhere that has no caption upload, because the words go wherever the file goes. They also let the captions match the design of the video. Closed captions suit longer videos on a platform with a proper player, training and course material, and anything published in several languages, since one video can carry many tracks. They also suit viewers who need control, such as people who want larger text. The W3C accessibility guideline for prerecorded video asks for captions on synchronised audio, and choosing the form is about where the video will play.
Running both from one project
Many teams stop treating this as a single choice and export two versions from the same edit. A clean master with no text in the picture goes to the platform with a real player, paired with a caption file in each language needed. A captioned export goes to feeds, messaging apps and anywhere the file may be forwarded. The cost is discipline: any change to the script has to reach both the burned in text and the caption file, or the two drift apart. Keeping one approved transcript as the source for both is the simplest way to stop that happening.
Common mistakes
Doubling is the most visible one: a video with burned in captions uploaded to a platform that also shows its own captions puts two lines of text on screen at once. Placing burned in text in the bottom band of a vertical frame is the next, because platform interface can cover it there. Burning in only the dialogue and leaving out an important sound, such as an alarm in a safety video, fails viewers who cannot hear it. Finally, teams burn captions into the only master file and then need a translated version, which means a full re-export rather than a new text file.
Where it shows up in the product
The video builder here burns captions in. They are generated from each scene's narration text, type on as the line is spoken, and are drawn into the picture as a dark pill at the bottom of the frame, 44 pixels up in landscape and 120 in vertical. They are on by default and can be switched off scene by scene. No SRT or VTT file is produced, so there is nothing to upload to YouTube or LinkedIn as a closed caption track. If a platform needs one, write the caption file from the narration text yourself, and switch off the burned in captions on every scene so the two do not appear together. Because captions come from narration, they carry speech only, never descriptions of other sounds.
Questions people ask
Can burned in captions be removed from a finished video?
Not cleanly. Once text is rendered into the frames, it is part of the picture, and removing it means covering or cropping that area, which damages the image. The practical route is to go back to the project, switch the captions off and export again. That is why it is worth keeping the editable project, not only the exported file, for any video you might reuse.
Are open captions the same as subtitles?
Not quite. Open and closed describe how captions are displayed, in the picture or as a switchable track. Captions and subtitles describe what the text contains: captions transcribe the audio in the same language, including important sounds, while subtitles translate speech for viewers who hear but do not understand the language. Subtitles can be burned in or closed too.
Do closed captions work on every platform?
No. They only appear where the player accepts a caption file, and formats and styling support differ from one platform to the next. Some feeds and messaging apps have no caption upload at all, so a closed track simply never reaches the viewer there. If a video will be shared widely beyond one platform, burned in captions are the only version guaranteed to travel with it.
How large should burned in captions be?
Large enough to read on a phone held at arm's length, with a solid or semi transparent background so the text survives bright footage. Keep to one or two short lines at a time rather than a paragraph. Test on a real phone, because text that looks generous on a desktop preview is often too small once the video fills a narrow screen.
Should captions be verbatim?
For accessibility, captions should match what is said as closely as a comfortable reading pace allows, and never change the meaning. For marketing clips, editors sometimes trim filler words so lines stay short on screen. Whatever the approach, product names, numbers, prices and dates should be exactly right, since those are the words viewers act on.
Make one with videos
The button opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own.
Create a video with OneCraftRelated questions
- Subtitles vs captions: what is the difference?Subtitles vs captions vs SDH: translation, transcription and sound description compared, with the UK and US naming differences and the mistakes to avoid.
- What is an SRT file?What is an SRT file? The plain text SubRip caption format explained cue by cue, how it differs from WebVTT, and the mistakes that break captions on upload.
- What is the title safe area in video?What is the title safe area? The inner part of a frame where text is never cropped, from the old 80 and 90 percent rules to EBU margins and platform overlays.
Step by step in the builder: Add voiceover, captions and music to a video.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .