Media Encoder overrides captions export settings set in Premiere

Follow up!

I tested this again today (01/28/2026) on two different computers running Premiere Pro v25.6.4 and MediaEncoder v25.6.4 and couldn’t replicate the error.

From my perspective, this bug report can be closed.

Thank you very much for all your input. Matias. It is frustrating for all of us if we cannot reproduce user issues. Please let me know ny additional information that may help us further investigate the issue.

If there is anything else I can do to help, please let me known, as I don’t know what else I can try on my end. I’ve tested this on five different computers: with both new and old projects, using extremely basic timelines and complex ones. I’ve tried my own user settings as well as those from other editors, across different operating systems and multiple versions of Premiere...and the issue happened every single time.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that this bug is not something major, but can create confusion and errors if nobody checks the exported assets.

@EckiAME, and Matias,

I re-tested in a new project; the first time I tested in Matias' project and one of my own. I cannot replicate today. Specifically, if I select Prores "fresh" from the "more presets," it comes in with the Captions toggle OFF. I click on the Video section to expand it and then close. When I first tested, this would turn the captions toggle on. Today it does not. Very strange.

When I repeat from PR to export mode, captions ARE toggled on (even though I made no change). When I first tested, sending to AME would then show captions OFF, and it did not burn in. Today AME shows captions ON and burns in.

Miscellaneous: after entering PR export mode the first time, using Ctl+M, I was not able to use Ctl+M again. I either clicked on Export mode, or File -> Export -> Media worked. I have seen this before, but it always seems random.

Edit: oops! PR 25.2.3 and AME 25.2.0; Win 10

Stan

I tested it on:

- Mac mini M4 Pro running Sequoia 15.4.1 with Adobe Premiere Pro 25.2.3 (4) and Adobe Media Encoder 25.2 (141).

- Mac Studio M2 Max running Sonoma 14.7.5 with Adobe Premiere Pro 25.1.0 (73) and Adobe Media Encoder 25.1 (65).
- Mac Pro (2019) running Sequoia 15.3.1 with Adobe Premiere Pro 25.2.1 (2) and Adobe Media Encoder 25.1 (65).

- Mac Pro (2019) running Sequoia 15.3.1 with Adobe Premiere Pro 24.6.5 (3) and Adobe Media Encoder 24.6.3 (4).

And got the same bug on all of them.

Hi Matias, I randomly changed effects like you described, and tried it in both AME/PPro 25 and AME/PPro 24.6.5.3.

Still cannot reproduce. Which app versions do you use?

Hi @EckiAME!
     Thanks for testing it out. If I'm not mistaken, I think you are missing one key element on your test: the issue comes when you change settings not related to captions in the Premiere Export window and send the sequence to Media Encoder for export.

I just did more tests: 
- I pick the Apple ProRess 422HQ preset and turned off the effects checkbox (captions is already off).
- I pick the Apple ProRess 422HQ preset and turned everything off (audio, caption, effects, metadata) except video.
- I pick the Apple ProRess 422HQ preset and turn on Loudness Normalization inside the Effects tab.

All these tests rendered the video with captions on when I send them to Media Encoder to render.

I'm using the same version of Premiere Pro and Media Encoder as you, and tested on another system last week and had the same issues.

I was not able to reproduce your issue using Adobe Premiere Pro 25.2.3.4 and Adobe Media Encoder 25.2.0.141 on macOS 15.4.1:

1. Created an empty project.
2. Imported your clip.
3. Added caption track and captions.
4. Exported using "Export Mode" and ProRes 422 HQ system preset with Captions off, with sidecar file, with captions turned off
   
   Did you try a newer version than 24.x?

Thanks Stan for the details and testing, it's good to know that I'm not alone on this one.

I'm sorry for uploading the wrong video asset, here is a link to download the original the project is using.

@Canelson,

Fabulous bug report! There have been reports of several versions of oddities in the handoff of caption settings between PR and AME, as well as a primary problem, exported from PR directly or queued to AME, of captions burning in when they should not (off or set to sidecar). I have been able to replicate very few of the reported problems. This makes a clean replication of even your clear problem difficult. I upvoted and replicated. But I get several other oddities that make no sense.

Testing this is complicated, because it is possible that the "captions on" indicator in PR is incorrect under some conditions. That leads me to guess it is a bug in PR, but I think it should be looked at by both teams (PR/AME). (@EckiAME: I'll leave it to you to suggest a process?) I also suspect that this is not limited to Prores, but it revealed it because its default is captions off.

I tested on Win 10 PR 25.2.3 and AME 25.2.0. I used your project and my own. Your counter.mov file had the captions burned in. In your project, I just put a different video on the timeline.

The Apple Prores 422 HQ match source preset starts with captions off, but making any change, even opening the Video settings and closing them, turns captions ON. If no change is made to the preset, captions stay off, it transfers to AME correctly, and captions do not burn in.

Making any change, as noted, turns captions on (and appears to always be burn-in). But when queued to AME, it shows the captions as OFF, and they do not burn-in. Even exporting a second time, without changing the preset, results in the captions turning back on.

Getting the preset back to its default configuration is not as easy as I thought it should be. I don't see a "reset" button. Simply reselecting it from the recent, favorites, or even the "more presets" in the 3 dot menu do nothing to change to the default. I have to change to another preset, then reselect it. I did this first by reselecting from the 3 dot "more pesets" list, but it appears that using the recents list is successful.

The setting in AME to "import sequences natively" (on or off) has made a difference in the past for some issues. I demonstrated the basic problem here with it on and off, but it may need further testing.

I note that if you turn captions off in PR, the greyed out option is whatever was set last. (For example, turn on captions, set sidecar, turn off; sidecar is the greyed out "un-selection." Now queue to AME, which shows burn-in greyed-out and captions SHOW in preview. But they do NOT burn-in (nor is there a sidecar file). This should not be possible. I re-enbled captions in AME, and saw that the greyed-out burn-in is NOT selectable and cannot be changed.

The best workaround appears to be resetting the captions setting in AME.

Stan