Closed captions vs subtitles vs open captions: the difference
Closed captions and subtitles both put the words on screen as a track the viewer can switch on or off. Closed captions are written for people who cannot hear the sound, so they also name the sounds that matter and who is speaking; subtitles carry the spoken words, often translated, for people who can hear. Open captions are drawn into the picture, so everyone sees them and nobody can switch them off. In the UK, the word subtitles covers both. Burncaps makes open captions and the SRT or VTT file free in your browser, and the video is never uploaded to us.
The video never leaves your browser. On a computer, the sound is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service; on a phone, it goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone. The service gets short pieces of sound, never the picture.
- Video never uploaded
- Free, no sign-up
- No watermark
Open captions, live: drawn into the picture on this page by the same engine that burns your video. No player can hide them.
The four words, side by side
Each one answers two questions: who the text is written for, and whether it sits apart from the picture or inside it.
| Name | What it shows | Written for | Can the viewer turn it off? | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subtitles | The words spoken, often translated into the viewer's language | Viewers who can hear the sound but need or want the words | Yes | A file or a track beside the picture |
| Closed captions (CC) | The words spoken, plus the sounds that matter and who is speaking | Viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing | Yes | A file or a track, or with a TV programme's signal |
| SDH, subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing | Subtitles written like captions: the words, sounds in brackets and speaker labels | Viewers who cannot hear the sound | Yes | A subtitle file |
| Open captions (burned in, hard subs) | Any of the above, drawn into the picture | Everyone who watches | No | In the picture itself |
Subtitles vs closed captions: who they are written for
The difference is the reader. Closed captions are written for someone who cannot hear the sound, so they carry what the sound carries. The rules of the US Federal Communications Commission for TV captions say captions must match the spoken words and also convey background noises and other sounds; those rules cover TV programmes, and the FCC says it does not regulate the captioning of home videos. The DCMP Captioning Key, the guidelines the US Described and Captioned Media Program writes for its captioning vendors, adds who is speaking: the speaker's name in parentheses when the caption's position cannot show who is talking, and a sound described in brackets with its source, such as [siren screaming].
Subtitles are written for someone who can hear but needs the words, most often because the language is not theirs. The W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative uses captions for text in the same language as the speech and subtitles for a translation, and says translated subtitles are usually the speech alone.
The words are used loosely. The W3C notes that captions and subtitles mean the same thing in different regions, and the BBC's Subtitle Guidelines (the version dated March 2026) call the BBC's closed captions subtitles throughout. Those BBC subtitles are written for viewers who cannot hear: each speaker has a colour, and a sound that matters gets a label in capitals, such as FLOORBOARDS CREAK. The same guidelines say about 10% of broadcast viewers use subtitles regularly, rising to 35% for some online content, and that most of them are not hard of hearing.
Open captions vs closed captions
Closed captions are kept apart from the picture: a file or a track that the player draws on top, which each viewer shows or hides. Open captions are part of the picture itself, so the W3C describes them as always displayed and impossible to turn off. They play in every player and every app, with the sound on or off.
| What matters | Closed captions | Open captions |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees them | Viewers who switch them on | Every viewer |
| The look | The player's own font and box; some players let viewers change it | Your font, colours, size and animation, exactly as you made them |
| Languages | One file per language, and the viewer picks | One language per video file |
| Changing a word later | Edit the text file and upload it again | Export the video again from the original |
| A repost, a download, a message | The caption file stays on the site it was uploaded to | The words go wherever the video goes |
A cinema showing billed as open caption is the same idea: the captions are on the screen for the whole audience.
Hard subs vs soft subs
Hard subs (hardsubs, hardcoded or burned-in subtitles) are open captions by another name: the words became pixels when the video was encoded, so no player can hide or restyle them, and no tool can take them out cleanly afterwards. Soft subs are closed: a subtitle file beside the video, such as an SRT or VTT, or a track inside an MP4 or MKV, which the viewer turns on or off and, where there are several, picks a language from.
Hardcode when the video will play in feeds, apps, presentations or messages and you want one look everywhere; keep soft subs when viewers should be able to switch them off or choose a language, or when the words may change after you publish. Many people do both from the same script. If you hardcode, keep the original file: hardcoding subtitles into a video covers the rest.
What SDH means, and English CC vs English
SDH stands for subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing: subtitles in the same language as the speech, written like closed captions and delivered as a subtitle file. Netflix's English (USA) Timed Text Style Guide (its latest change dated 19 December 2025) gives SDH a section of its own. Speaker names and sound effects go in square brackets, sounds that matter to the plot are included unless the picture makes them clear, a line holds at most 42 characters, and adult programmes run at up to 20 characters a second. A separate section covers English subtitles for programmes in other languages.
So when a streaming menu offers English CC or English SDH beside plain English, the CC or SDH track is the one written for viewers who cannot hear the sound.
Which to use, and which file
| Where the video goes | Use | The file |
|---|---|---|
| Reels, TikTok, Shorts and other feeds | Open captions, burned in | An MP4 with the words in the picture; they stay on a repost or a download |
| YouTube, a long video | Closed captions or subtitles | SRT is one of YouTube's basic formats; VTT is on its list too. YouTube's list does not include ASS |
| Vimeo | Closed captions or subtitles | SRT or WebVTT, in UTF-8; Vimeo recommends WebVTT |
| Your own website or a course platform | Closed captions | WebVTT, which the W3C calls the most common caption format on the web |
| Viewers who cannot hear | Closed captions or SDH | A file that also names sounds and speakers: add them to the SRT or VTT yourself |
| One video in several languages | Subtitles | One SRT or VTT per language |
For the steps on each platform, see the SRT file format, explained; for a YouTube upload, the YouTube subtitle generator.
What Burncaps makes: open captions and the caption file
Drop a talking video and Burncaps writes every word, timed to the voice. The MP4 it exports is open captions: animated word by word, in 60 styles, in the picture. The SRT and VTT buttons write the same words as a file the viewer can switch on: captions that never run across two sentences, each at most two lines of 42 characters, the line length in Netflix's guide. ASS keeps each word's timing as karaoke tags. This is what the SRT button writes for a short sample, made with the editor's own exporter:
| Line in the file | What it is |
|---|---|
| 1 | The caption's number |
| 00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:04,210 | When it shows and when it hides, from the words' own times |
| Closed captions are a file | The words: the first line |
| the viewer can switch on. | The second line; the caption ends with the sentence |
| (an empty line) | The end of the caption |
| 2 | The next caption's number |
| 00:00:04,660 --> 00:00:09,490 | Its times: it starts when the next sentence is spoken |
| Open captions are drawn into the | Up to 42 characters a line |
| picture, so everyone sees them. | The second line |
Captions, subtitles or SDH?
Burncaps writes the words it heard, and adds no descriptions of sounds and no speaker names. So its files are subtitles of the speech, or captions in the plain sense, and not SDH. To make SDH, add the sounds in brackets and the speakers' names to the SRT in a text editor or our free SRT editor. The W3C says automatic captions do not meet accessibility needs unless they are confirmed to be fully accurate, so read the script before you export: click any word to correct it, and one click fixes every other place it was heard.
Free: 2 videos every 30 days, each with captions and up to 3 clips, no watermark, no sign-up. Then try Captions + Clips free for 7 days, no card. Captions + Clips is $29 a month for unlimited clips and captions; Captions is $9.98 a month or $49 once. SRT, VTT, ASS and text files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes.
Where these facts come from
Read on 3 November 2026: the FCC's consumer guide Closed Captioning on Television; the DCMP Captioning Key (its pages on quality captioning, sound effects and speaker identification); the BBC Subtitle Guidelines, the version dated March 2026; Netflix's English (USA) Timed Text Style Guide; the W3C's Captions/Subtitles page; YouTube Help's supported subtitle and closed caption files; and Vimeo Help's How to add captions or subtitles to my video. These guides change, so we recheck them by 3 December 2026.
Questions, answered plainly
What is the difference between closed captions and subtitles?
Closed captions are written for viewers who cannot hear the sound, so besides the words they name the sounds that matter and who is speaking. Subtitles carry the spoken words, often translated, for viewers who can hear. Both are usually a track the viewer switches on or off. In the UK, subtitles is used for both: the BBC's Subtitle Guidelines call its closed captions subtitles.
What is the difference between open and closed captions?
Closed captions sit in a file or track apart from the picture, and each viewer shows or hides them. Open captions are drawn into the picture itself, so every viewer sees them, in every player, and they cannot be turned off. Burned-in captions and hard subs are open captions.
What does SDH mean on subtitles?
SDH means subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing: subtitles in the same language as the speech, written like closed captions, with speaker names and sound effects in square brackets. Netflix's English (USA) Timed Text Style Guide has a section of its own for them.
What is the difference between hard subs and soft subs?
Hard subs are burned into the picture when the video is encoded, so no player can hide them; they are open captions. Soft subs are a separate file, such as an SRT or VTT, or a track inside the video file, which the viewer turns on or off and can pick a language from.
Should I use open or closed captions on social media?
For Reels, TikTok, Shorts and other feeds, open captions burned into the video are the safe choice: every viewer sees them, in your own style, and they stay on a repost or a download. Use a closed caption file where a platform takes one and viewers should be able to switch the captions off, such as a long video on YouTube or Vimeo.
What file format do closed captions use?
On the web, mostly WebVTT (.vtt), which the W3C calls the most common caption format on the web, and SRT (.srt). YouTube takes both, and more; Vimeo takes SRT and WebVTT and recommends WebVTT. Broadcast TV uses its own formats.
Does Burncaps make closed captions or subtitles?
Both kinds of output. The MP4 it exports has open captions burned in, animated word by word. The SRT, VTT, ASS and text files hold the same words, which a viewer can switch on where the file is uploaded. Burncaps writes the words heard and adds no sound descriptions or speaker names, so the files are not SDH unless you add those yourself.
Is my video uploaded?
No. Burncaps opens the video in your browser and never receives it. On a computer, the sound is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service; on a phone it goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone (short pieces of sound, never the picture, to Microsoft's speech recognition in the EU, which by Microsoft's terms for the service stores none of it).
Burncaps facts, checked 3 November 2026
What it is: a browser tool that burns animated word-by-word captions into a talking video, or finds the best moments of a talk, podcast or interview and gives them back as ranked, captioned 9:16 clips.
Price: free for 2 videos every 30 days, each one recording with its captioned video and up to 3 clips, no mark and no sign-up; then the free 7-day Captions + Clips trial, no card (your email only); then Captions + Clips, $29 a month, gives unlimited clips and captioned videos, or Captions, $9.98 a month or $49 once, gives unlimited captioned videos. Captions paid once is not a subscription.
Privacy: the video never leaves your browser. The sound goes only to our speech service, on a phone unless you switch it off, on a computer only if you choose it. Because the video never reaches us, we cannot keep it or train AI on it, and we train no AI on anything you make.
Files: MP4 or MOV in, MP4 out. Captions on the whole video: up to ten minutes. Clips: up to three hours, on a phone or a computer. SRT, VTT, ASS and text files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes; a longer recording, up to three hours, gives its script and those files (the first ten minutes free, all of it as one of your free videos, in the trial or with Captions + Clips or Captions) and its clips (every one found and shown before you sign up; up to 3 from each free video exported free, every one in the trial or with Captions + Clips).
Clips: about one clip for every two minutes of talk, up to 30, ranked, the ones we would post first circled, each showing the words it opens and ends on and the reason it was chosen; each cut to 9:16 with ums and dead air removed, an opening card and captions, framed on whoever is talking. Every clip of the whole recording is found and shown, free and with no sign-up; each free video exports up to 3 of them, and the 7-day trial and Captions + Clips export every clip, unlimited.
Languages and styles: captions in the language spoken, twelve Indian languages heard on your device, translation into 59 languages, 60 caption styles.
After it listens: correct any word (one click changes it everywhere), add or cut words, one to six words at a time, position, size, text and highlight colours, and names this browser remembers, all free and without listening again.
Made by: Jordan Labs Ltd, UK company no. 17358646.
Against other tools: sixteen caption tools compared, from the vendors' own pages.