Embedded closed captions have 30 frame delayed start

Question

Hi, I've encountered an issue with Premiere and I can't seem to find a way around it. When closed captioning videos in Premiere. If I select the option to embed the captions in the video there is a roughly 30 frame delay from the start of the videos that the captions actually appear in the video. My caption track is set to CEA-608. I've tried using multiple formats for the caption files. .mcc, .srt, .scc. No matter what I can't seem to get around this. Now here's the weird thing. The captons are not out of sync at all. It just takes 30 frames for them to appear when they are embedded. Also, if I choose to burn in the captions they play back exactly as they should. On top of that if I add the embedded closed captions to a slated track they line up perfectly.  But if I try to export just the captioned area from the slated sequence I get that 30 frame delay. Also, when I import my exported video and throw it on a timeline you can see that the subtitle track doesnt start until 30 frames into the video. I'm using V25.3 on a mac studio with 192gb ram and an M2 ultra chip. Has anyone encountered this? Is this a known issue with embedded closed captions in premiere?

Stan Jones · Answer

@jspool420,

Over many years, users have reported oddities regarding the start point of embedded captions and .scc files. I simply don't understand enough about the technical issues to sort it out. But I cannot replicate your current description. I'll report my results below. I have some questions to help pursue this further.

> When closed captioning videos in Premiere. If I select the option to embed the captions in the video

What export format are you using?

> there is a roughly 30 frame delay from the start of the videos that the captions actually appear in the video.

How are you testing that?

> My caption track is set to CEA-608. I've tried using multiple formats for the caption files. .mcc, .srt, .scc.

How are you creating your caption track? I don't understand what you mean by using multiple formats. Are you importing the captions? Are you changing the start time of the sequence?

> a slated track

Sorry; I don't understand that. How do you set that up?

I tested on Win 11 and PR 25.4.0. I do not believe there has been any change in the timecode issues for the embedding process for many versions. But I do not know that for a fact.

My test video is 29.97 drop frame, duration 00;02;37;13. I created 608 subtitles from a PR transcript, using defaults.

The first caption is at 00;00;01;02. The timing of the captions is good.

File -> Export -> Caption as SCC.
Reimport using Source timecode as start; Exact match.

However, the actual timecode when viewed in Notepad++ is 00:00:00;12 and in Subtitle Edit 00:00:00.500. All captions appear to be offset by that same amount. In SE, synchronization is off, and can be adjusted using Synchronization -> Adjust all lines, Show later 667 milliseconds. But that could be a limitation of SE.

Now export QuickTime with embedded captions. Reimport to PR (be sure Edit -> Preferences -> Media has "Import captions" checked); perfect alignment compared to original timecodes. Playback in Telestream Switch 5.0; timing is correct. I use the free version, so I cannot see the decoded words, but the appearance/timing of the captions is there.

Stan

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