According to a recent survey, 50% of users agreed that online videos must have captions. This study alone shows that adding subtitles to your video content is highly beneficial. As a content creator, you can choose between two main subtitle formats: SRT and VTT.
At first glance, SRT and VTT files may seem interchangeable, as they provide text that syncs with your video. However, these files can take a lot of time to create; thankfully, this can be solved by opting for documentary transcription services—more on that later.
In This Article, You’ll Know How:
- Captions make videos more accessible and engaging, improving audience retention and supporting viewers with hearing difficulties, language barriers, or sound restrictions.
- The difference between SRT and VTT subtitle formats—SRT offers simplicity and wide compatibility, while VTT provides styling and metadata features ideal for web-based content.
- Accurate subtitles are essential for educational, legal, medical, promotional, and multilingual videos, preventing confusion and ensuring clarity.
What Is A Subtitle?
Subtitles are a way to display text along with a video to make the dialogue more accessible to viewers. It includes the words spoken and cues for timing and placement.
Subtitles also help make your video content accessible for people with hearing issues or language barriers, those needing assistance understanding the content, or simply those who prefer reading the captions while watching the video. In the continental US alone, 92% of users view videos without sound, making subtitles essential for any viewing experience. In the legal field, the subtitles are transcripts. Legal transcripts help access information from legal events. This aids those who were not able to be physically present during the case or for legal preparations.
The most commonly used subtitle formats today are SRT and VTT. These formats provide standards for creating subtitles on different platforms and sharing them on other devices.
Types Of Video Content That Can Benefit From Subtitles
Some video types and content formats—either through their inherent structure or the subject matter they tackle—can greatly benefit from subtitles. Here are some of them:
| Types of Videos | Importance of Accurate Subtitles |
| Educational Videos | Help students follow the content, especially if they have hearing difficulties, speak a different language, or are in a noisy place. |
| Tutorials or How-to videos | Make it easier to understand step-by-step instructions, even if the audio is unclear. |
| Interviews or Documentaries | Ensure viewers don’t miss important information or conversations, especially with multiple speakers or background noise. |
| Promotional videos | Grab the attention of people scrolling through social media with the sound off, helping your message reach more people. |
| Legal and medical videos: | Important information is clearly and accurately shared. |
| Multilingual Content: | Allow videos to reach people who speak different languages, expanding your audience worldwide. |
| Videos with technical or complex topics | Help viewers understand difficult ideas and words by providing visual support and spoken information. |
What Is a VTT File?
A VTT file is a subtitle format specifically for online videos, like the ones we see on YouTube. WebVTT (or simply VTT) stands for Web Video Text Tracks, and it’s like a script that tells the video what words to display and when. It’s not too different from other subtitle formats, like SRT, but it has features that make it work well with web-based video players, like Flowplayer, Clappr, Cloudinary, and more.
VTT files include the dialogue text and time codes that sync the text to the video. They can also include metadata and styling information—colors and fonts—to make the subtitles look nicer. These files are a great way to make your online videos more accessible for people who need subtitles.
What Is an SRT File?
On the other hand, an SRT file is another subtitle format that has been used since the days of yore—and it’s quite common. SRT stands for SubRip Subtitle and is a simple way to add captions/subtitles to videos. Like VTT files, SRT files contain the text of the subtitles with timecodes that show when each line should appear and disappear.
However, SRT files don’t support some of the more fancy features found in WebVTT, like styling or metadata. Even so, SRT remains a go-to choice for many due to its simplicity and wider compatibility with media players and devices—not entirely because it got here first.
What Is The Difference Between SRT and VTT?
As mentioned earlier, SRT and VTT files differ from each other. Below is the comparison of the two:
| Feature | SRT (SubRip Subtitle) | VTT (WebVTT – Web Video Text Tracks) |
| Age / Popularity | Oldest, widely used, long-standing standard | Newer format, designed for the web |
| Compatibility | Supported by most media players, video platforms, and editing tools | Primarily for HTML5 video players, widely supported on modern web browsers |
| Ease of Use | Simple, minimal format, easy to create/edit with any text editor | Slightly more complex but still editable with text editors |
| Formatting / Styling | Very limited (plain text only, no built-in styling) | Supports text styling (bold, italic, underline), positioning, colors, etc. |
| Extra Features | Basic captions with timing only | Advanced features: metadata, speaker identification, regions, text alignment |
| Best Use Case | Local video playback, legacy systems, and simple subtitles | Web-based video content, when styling or interactivity is needed |
Is One Better Than The Other?
With all things equal, no file type is inherently better. Essentially, they are both verbatim, implying that the complete account of the recording is captured.
It all boils down to what you need it for, how you want to make it, and if you can utilize the specific format’s features to their full extent.
How to Create SRT and VTT files?
Creating SRT and VTT files is easier than you might think.
Creating SRT File
To make an SRT file, open a plain text editor like Notepad. Take a look at the example below. Begin each subtitle with a number, followed by the start and end times in an “hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds” format.
On the next line, type out the subtitle text itself. Then, leave a blank line before starting the next subtitle. Once you’ve added all your subtitles, save the text file with a “.srt” extension.
That’s it! You now have a functional SRT subtitle file that you can use with your video, although this route will take a lot of time.
Creating a VTT file
Making a VTT file is pretty similar, but with a few extra steps. Start by opening a plain text editor and adding “WEBVTT” on the first line. This tells the video player that it’s dealing with a VTT file. Then, add your subtitles in the same format as an SRT file, “hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds” and subtitle text.
However, with VTT, you can also include cues to style your text, like fonts or making certain words bold or italic—see illustration. Once you’ve added all your subtitles and styling cues, save the file with a “.vtt” extension. Your VTT file is now ready to be used with your online video.
If you compare the text format with the SRT format, it’s clear that VTT can be much more complicated, meaning creating the file takes longer than creating SRT files.
Can you imagine doing this with a one-hour video with different people speaking over one another? You will pull all-nighters, especially if you’re not used to it.
Good thing we have the perfect solution for you.
Ditto Transcripts Can Produce The Most Accurate Subtitles Files
At Ditto Transcripts, we understand the importance of accurate captions for your video content’s accessibility. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to provide you with the easiest way to obtain high-quality transcripts in different formats. Do you need an SRT file? a VTT file? We’ll assist you with whatever subtitle format you need.
Let Ditto Transcripts do the captioning, and you can rest assured that your captions will be created precisely. Our transcriptionists will manually transcribe your content and put it through quality checks as often as needed to ensure a 99%+ accuracy rate.
Based on all objective information, Ditto Transcripts is the best transcription company. Aside from accuracy, our security measures are also top-notch as Ditto Transcripts is HIPAA and CJIS-compliant. With all these benefits, it must be expensive, right? Not at all. Our transcription pricing is transparent, with an easy-to-use calculator to allow clients to estimate their potential expenses. Speaking of clients, here is a testimonial that tell you everything you should know about our services.
Getting started with us is also very straightforward. You only need to send us your video or audio file through our secure online platform.
Let us know your preferred file type, and we will handle the rest. Once the transcription is complete, we’ll generate your captions in the format you prefer, whether SRT, VTT, or any other format we support.
Let’s Discuss
Don’t let the hassle of creating subtitle files hold you back from making your videos accessible and engaging.
Let Ditto Transcripts handle the heavy lifting for you. Our skilled transcriptionists will provide accurate captions in your preferred format with a 99% accuracy rate and quick turnaround times. This way, you can focus on creating great content while we take care of the rest.
Ditto Transcripts is a Denver, Colorado-based FINRA, HIPAA, and CJIS-compliant transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote.