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Taylor28285958on2c
Participant
February 11, 2026
Question

SRT Subtitles 1-frame offsync

  • February 11, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 13 views

I'm mastering a feature film and just ran into an annoying subtitle issue. We were pretty meticulous to match subtitle cuts with video cuts, since being 1-frame off looks like a jump cut. We have over 2000 subtitles, so I exported the English subs as an SRT and sent that off to multiple translators to get all the different language SRT's.

As a test, I just reimported my original English SRT back into my sequence and it's 1-frame off. To be clear, the disabled subs on c1 were original and c2 were just round-tripped back in. I open both SRT's in textedit and the timecodes are identical.

In the bin, Premiere lists the SRT framerate as 30:00 and the project is 23.98, but I'm under the impression that this doesn't matter since SRT's are based on frame timecode, not framerate. Plus I don't see an option to adjust this.

I see no reason why Premiere would mistranslate it's own SRT... Any ideas on why this would happen or a possible fix? I've used timecode shifter apps, but want to understand why it's happening because I'm about to deal with 10+ other languages coming in.

 

(I’m on Premiere 24.6.8 Build 3, I can not update versions this late into the project)


Thanks

 

    1 reply

    Stan Jones
    Community Expert
    Stan JonesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 11, 2026

    ​@Taylor28285958on2c,

    You are correct; the 30fps nominal indication was arbitrary when they decided how to label what was now a non-video track item that had no framerate.

    I accept your test of PR 23.6.8. I tested PR Beta 26.2.0.18 on Win 11. I used your method of exporting and reimporting an srt. I’ll go back to test release 26.0.0. 

    You say your C1 is the original, but C1 is the lower track, I get the imported track being one frame EARLY, not late. This may matter for the workaround I describe, but you can adjust that if there really is a difference.

    This phenomenon does NOT occur with a 29.97 source and sequence.

    It did happen with a 23.976 clip and sequence.

    > I see no reason why Premiere would mistranslate it's own SRT
    I sure don’t. I think it is a bug. And I wonder how long it has been here.

    I assumed this was a bi-product of the conversion of frames to milliseconds and back. But that should produce a variation in 1 frame variations: sometimes correct, sometimes over, sometimes under. But this is 1 frame early always - as if its been calculated and then one frame less.

    The workaround points to the actual bug. Use the “Import Captions from File” process, and, in the “New captions track” dialogue, pick “Playhead” position. Logically, you would set the Playhead on the original caption position. But NO, that creates the exact problem. So set it instead, one frame AFTER that position. If for some reason, mine are early and yours are late, just adapt the adjustment.

    So I think the bug is that on import, for some framerates (other than 29.97), the captions are started one frame early.

    BTW, how did you align your captions to begin with? You may want to upvote this feature request I just commented on:
     

    ​@mattchristensen, I’m not sure who can move items so far in the new forum. If you don’t see something I’m missing, can you move this to bug reports?

    Stan

     

     

    Stan Jones
    Community Expert
    Stan JonesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 11, 2026

    I now tested 26.0.0. Before and now, I am exporting srt via 3 dots.
    A 29.97 clip/sequence imports correctly with source timecode or playhead position.
    A 23.976 clip/sequence imports one frame early with source timecode or playhead in original position. It imports correctly using playhead position and setting it one frame late.

    Stan

     

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