The 10-second answer
- Burn captions in for short-form social (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) where 80% of viewers watch on mute.
- Use soft subtitles for long-form on YouTube, Vimeo and LinkedIn so viewers can toggle them off and search engines can index them.
- For accessibility-first delivery, ship both: a clean master plus a soft .srt/.vtt sidecar.
Burned-in (hard-coded) subtitles
The captions are rendered into the actual pixels of every frame. They cannot be turned off, restyled or translated after the fact.
Pros
- Always visible — even when autoplay is muted or sound is off.
- Style is fully under your control: font, color, position, outline, animation.
- Works on every player, including ones that do not support sidecar files.
Cons
- Permanent — typos require re-rendering the whole video.
- Not searchable or indexable by Google or YouTube.
- Cannot be translated without re-rendering per language.
- Slightly larger file (the burn adds compression complexity).
Soft (sidecar) subtitles
A separate caption file (typically .srt or .vtt) that the player reads and overlays at playback time.
Pros
- Viewer can toggle on or off and pick a language.
- YouTube and Google index the text — direct SEO benefit.
- Edit a typo by replacing a 5KB text file, not re-rendering the video.
- Easy to add new translations without touching the video.
Cons
- Viewer might leave them off and miss your message.
- Styling is limited to what the player supports.
- Some platforms (TikTok) do not honor uploaded caption files for short clips.
Recommendation by platform
| Platform | Recommended approach |
|---|---|
| TikTok / Instagram Reels / YouTube Shorts | Burn in. Soft captions are ignored or hidden by default. |
| YouTube long-form | Soft VTT/SRT upload. Indexed for search, viewer can translate. |
| Vimeo / LinkedIn | Soft SRT upload. Both platforms have a clean caption toggle. |
| Broadcast / OTT (Netflix-style) | Soft sidecar in TTML or SCC for compliance. |
| Accessibility-first delivery | Ship both — burned default + soft sidecar for control. |
How ScribeVids handles both
Generate the transcript once, then choose your output. Soft subtitles export as SRT, VTT or ASS. The auto-burn feature renders hard-coded captions in any supported language with custom font, color, position and outline, and gives you the finished MP4.