Inspiring

Captions embedded in Exported file when only sidecar file option selected

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
June 13, 2024
7 replies
583 views

Hi People,

When I attempt to export a file which has subtitles/captions, I need to have the subtitles/captions as a separate sidecar file. When I select that as an option, I still get subtitles/captions in the exported video. So far the only way I can achieve my goal is to turn the Subtitles/Caption export option off and export the sidecar file from the Text Captions tab.

The Adobe Help file indicates that I should also have a 3rd option in the Captions export options but only have 2.

What am I missing or is this a long standing bug?

Andrew

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D

dinsypAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks so much for your response Stan. Helps me to understand what's happening. Much appreciated. Andrew

Stan Jones

Community Expert

Your VLC screenshot shows what you would see if you have a sidecar file. If your goal is to export a sidecar file, you probably have it exported already.

Remember, as I said, PR will not export an "embedded" caption stream in an .mp4 export. It either exports a sidecar or burns the captions in.

This is what I think you are seeing. Your exported file in the screenshot is "Boundary map considerations_1.mp4". You have, at some point, exported a sidecar file for this filename. VLC will automatically look for an SRT file matching the filename, and use it as a subtitle/caption sidecar file. You are not actually seeing "embedded" (e.g. closed caption/608 etc) subtitles, but a sidecar file.

One test for this is to import the file back to PR. You did this and you don't see captions because it is a separate sidecar file, not an embed, and the captions are also not burned in.

Another test is to go to the export directory and look to see if there is an srt file.

Some users have reported that they believe that captions are burned in when they select only sidecar but some of those turned out to be this oddity of VLC players.

Stan