YouTube · long form
Subtitle a full YouTube video, not just the clip.
Up to 90 minutes on Pro. Take the SRT for YouTube’s own caption track, or burn in for the clips you cut from it.
For a full-length YouTube video, upload an SRT subtitle track rather than burning captions in: YouTube indexes the subtitle file, uses it for search and auto-translation, and lets viewers switch it off. LumaCaption produces an SRT with word-level timing from videos up to 90 minutes and never uploads the video itself.
Long-form YouTube is the one place where burning captions into the picture is usually the wrong call. YouTube reads an uploaded subtitle file: it indexes the text, uses it to auto-translate into other languages, and shows viewers a caption they can switch off, resize and recolour to their own accessibility settings. Burned-in text does none of that and cannot be turned off by a viewer who does not want it.
The exception is the clips you cut out of that video for Shorts, Reels and TikTok, where burned-in is the whole point. So the honest workflow for a long-form channel is both: an SRT for the main upload, burned-in captions for everything you slice off it.
Ninety-minute videos
Pro takes videos up to 90 minutes and Creator up to 30 — a full episode in one pass rather than four chunks stitched back together.
An SRT YouTube can index
Free unlimited SRT, VTT and plain-text downloads on every plan, with timings taken from real speech rather than fixed intervals.
Editable before you commit
Fix names, jargon and product spellings in the transcript first. YouTube will index whatever you upload, so it is worth being right.
The same edit feeds your clips
Burn any section in with one of 240+ styles for the Shorts cut, using the same corrected transcript as the long upload.
Why the subtitle file beats burned-in on long form
A subtitle track is data; burned-in captions are pixels. On a platform that reads your data, that distinction has consequences worth money.
- Searchable
- YouTube indexes the text of an uploaded caption track. Everything you said becomes findable — burned-in words are invisible to it.
- Translatable
- YouTube can auto-translate an uploaded caption track into other languages. It cannot translate pixels.
- Switchable
- Viewers control caption size, colour and whether they appear at all. Burned-in captions override every accessibility preference a viewer has set.
- Correctable
- Replace an SRT without re-uploading or re-encoding the video. Fixing burned-in captions means a new render and a new upload, and resets the URL.
Where auto-generated captions run out
YouTube generates captions automatically, and for clear English speech about ordinary subjects they are usable. They fall down on the three things a specialist channel is made of: proper nouns, domain vocabulary, and any sentence that switches language mid-way.
That last one is the sharpest problem for Indian channels. A sentence that runs Hindi-English-Hindi is normal speech to the audience and an edge case to a general transcription model, which will typically pick one language and mangle the rest. Hinglish here is its own mode — transcribed as mixed speech and written in the Roman script the audience reads — rather than a Hindi model’s output pushed through a transliterator.
The other reason to supply your own file is that the transcript is editable before it becomes the thing YouTube indexes. Names, products and jargon get fixed once, and the corrected text is what feeds both the SRT and any clip you burn captions into afterwards.
How it works
Add the full episode
Up to 30 minutes on Creator, 90 on Pro. The video file itself is never uploaded — only the audio is used.
Correct the transcript
Fix names, products and jargon. This is the text YouTube will index, so it pays to be exact.
Download the SRT, burn the clips
Upload the SRT to YouTube for the main video. For the Shorts you cut from it, burn captions in with any of 240+ styles.
Common questions
Should I burn subtitles into a long YouTube video?
Usually not. Uploading an SRT lets YouTube index the text for search, auto-translate it, and lets viewers switch captions off or resize them to their own accessibility settings — none of which works with burned-in pixels. Burn captions in for the Shorts and Reels you cut from the video, where they are the point.
How long a video can I caption?
Up to 30 minutes per video on Creator and 90 minutes on Pro. The free plan is capped at 2 minutes per video, which suits clips rather than episodes. Exports are free and unlimited on every plan, so re-rendering after a correction costs nothing.
Are YouTube’s automatic captions good enough?
For clear English on general subjects, often. They degrade on proper nouns, domain jargon and code-switched speech — a sentence that runs Hindi to English and back is normal for an Indian audience and an edge case for a general model. Supplying your own corrected SRT also means you control the text YouTube indexes.
What subtitle formats can I download?
SRT, WebVTT and a plain-text transcript, free and unlimited on every plan including free. YouTube accepts SRT directly in its subtitle upload flow.
Does my video get uploaded to caption it?
No. The file stays on your device; only the audio is used to work out the words and their timings. For a video that is not published yet, that is the difference between a tool you can use and one you cannot.
