Subtitles & transcription

Goal: add subtitles to your videos — either by uploading an .srt file or by letting AI generate them automatically — so clients can turn on captions and so transcripts power unified search, AI video summaries, and video repurposing.

Two ways to get subtitles

Method	How	Best for
Upload a .srt file	Drop an .srt file into the collection's upload area alongside your video.	When you already have a subtitle file from a captioning service or manual transcription.
AI transcription	Click Generate Subtitles on the admin video detail page.	When you want AI to produce subtitles automatically from the video's audio.

Uploading a .srt file

Open the collection from Videos → Manage Videos.
Drop your .srt file into the upload area (the same area used for video files).
The uploader compares the subtitle filename (without extension) to video filenames in the collection and pairs them automatically.

Name your subtitle file to match the video's original filename, minus the extension. For example, a video uploaded as clip1.mp4 is matched automatically by a subtitle uploaded as clip1.srt.

If a subtitle's filename doesn't match any video already in the collection (for example, you uploaded the subtitle before the video, or the names don't line up), it's kept as an Unmatched Subtitle at the top of the Videos tab. From there you can pick the correct video from a dropdown and click Pair, or delete the unmatched file.

AI subtitle generation

If AI transcription is available on your account, you can generate subtitles automatically from any video's audio using AI speech recognition.

Open the video from Videos → [Collection] → [video].
Click Generate Subtitles below the player.
A background job extracts the audio from the video, sends it for AI speech-to-text processing, and saves the resulting .srt file.
The status shows Generating Subtitles… while processing. When complete, a Subtitles tab appears with the timestamped transcript.

If the video already has subtitles, the AI-generated file is saved as an Unmatched Subtitle for manual pairing. This prevents overwriting your existing subtitles.

What transcripts power

Once a video has subtitles, the text is parsed into a searchable transcript. This enables:

Unified search — videos with transcripts become searchable by any word spoken in the video.
AI video summary — the transcript is analyzed to produce a concise summary of the video's content.
Video repurposing — the transcript is analyzed to identify segments that work well as social-media clips.

Viewing & editing the transcript

The Subtitles tab on the admin video detail page includes a built-in video player with live captions and a cue list below it. Each row shows the cue's timestamp and text. As the video plays, the currently active cue is highlighted in the list so you can see exactly where playback is relative to the subtitles.

Playing with live captions

The Subtitles tab has its own video player, independent of the main Video tab player. It renders the subtitle track as live captions while playing — so you can watch the video and verify the subtitles match what's being said.

Editing a cue

Click the text of any cue in the list. The video pauses, seeks to that cue's start time, and the row's text is replaced by an inline text area.
Edit the text in the text area.
Click the check-mark button next to the text area (or click away from the cue) to confirm the edit. The text area closes and the row now shows your updated text with an amber left-border indicating a staged change.

Only one cue can be in edit mode at a time. Opening a different cue while one is already open will cancel the unconfirmed edit on the first cue.

Edits at this stage are staged locally — they haven't been saved to the server yet. You can continue editing other cues before saving everything at once.

Navigating with Prev / Next

Prev and Next buttons move between cues relative to the currently active or edited cue. When you click them, the video seeks to that cue's start time, pauses, and the cue opens directly in edit mode. This is useful for reviewing and correcting cues sequentially. The Prev button is disabled on the first cue, and Next is disabled on the last.

Saving your changes

After making edits, click the Save Subtitles button above or below the cue list. The button is only enabled when you have staged changes.
All cues are sent to the server in one request — timestamps stay unchanged, only the text is updated where you made edits.
On success, the staged-edit highlights are cleared and a brief confirmation message appears. The .srt file is overwritten and the video's transcript is automatically re-parsed (which re-queues any dependent AI jobs like summaries or repurposing).
If the save fails, an error message appears near the button and your staged edits are preserved so you can retry.

Cues with staged but unsaved changes are marked with an amber left-border on each row. If you navigate away or close the page with staged changes, they will be lost — remember to click Save Subtitles.

Downloading the .srt file

You can still download the current subtitle file as an .srt from the Subtitles tab, regardless of whether you've made any edits.

Replacing subtitles

To replace existing subtitles, upload a new .srt file with the same name as the video (e.g. clip1.srt for clip1.mp4). The new file replaces the existing paired subtitle and triggers a transcript re-parse, which re-queues any dependent AI jobs (summary, repurposing).

Supported format

Only .srt (SubRip) subtitle files are supported, with a maximum size of 5 MB. Other formats (VTT, ASS, SSA) are not currently accepted.