Mastering Multimedia: Step-by-Step Tutorial for Embedding Text in MP4/MKV/AVI Videos

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How to Add Subtitles to MP4 YouTube Video

Posted by Kaylee Wood | Last update: April 28, 2020

As the saying goes - seeing is believing, in the course of movie/video appreciation, we add subtitles to avoid our comprehension being interfered by mishearing. But, how to add subtitles to a MP4 video free? The subtitles-adding media player -5KPlayer will reveal the answer.

How to Add Subtitles to MP4/AVI/MKV YouTube Videos with 5KPlayer?

Now, with refined subtitles in hand, you may start to figure out how to add those subtitles to YouTube movies and videos. We recommend you the free subtitle-adding software – 5KPlayer .

This computer video subtitle player provides one-stop solution to add subtitles to YouTube videos: 1. free download MP4 FLV videos and 2. free insert subtitles to YouTube. 5KPlayer supports subtitles of many formats including *.srt, *.ass, *.ssa, *.json, *.aqt and *.sub, which can save you a lot of trouble in converting subtitle formats, whilst its Windows version only supports *.srt and *.ssa. It also supports almost all kinds of languages: Klingon, Arabic, Latin etc. with multiple tracks that even cares for your most bizarre preferences.

You can set the subtile default encoding, font, font size, font color, background color etc. by tapping “F2” to view the settings.

Step 1. Download this subtitle-adding software on your Mac or PC.
This computer video subtitle player offers both Mac version and Windows version for you to choose from.

Step 2: Open the video/movie file and click subtitle button on the 5KPlayer interface to load your subtitles, or, you can right click on the playing interface and select subtitle tracks to add your SRT/ASS/SUB subtitle file.

Note that your subtitle file should be placed under the same folder of your video otherwise the subtitle won’t be able to be displayed.

Note: There’s no way to play Zip subtitles in any video players! Your subtitle files shall not be compressed and should be remained in one of those common subtitle formats accordingly for file detecting.
Since there are basically two kinds of subtitles in a video file – hard subtitle and soft subtitle. The former is part of the video frames that cannot be disabled or hidden during playback, while the latter is an independent stream that can be turned on and off. It’s worth noticing that MP4 and MKV movie/videos usually contain several subtitle streams in different formats or language for you to select, which cannot be streamed to Apple-TV via AirPlay if you intend to stream the video to your big HDTV.

5KPlayer not only aids you to add subtitles to your AVI, MP4, MKV movie videos but also serves as a great movie music player that can play 4K/5K videos and support many popular file formats like MKV movies, MP4, AVI, FLV files with whatever subtitle format supported. Others worth a mention are that it can download videos/movies from over 300 online websites with an eye catching feature of AirPlay .

Tips on How to Sync Subtitles
There are chances that the manually inserted subtitles may lag behind or go faster than video playback (video-subtitle delay). 5KPlayer takes that into consideration by providing “Synchronization” button for you to adjust for a perfect match on its powerful right click.

About AirPlay Subtitles
Some of you may find it’s weird that while AirPlay a movie (in AirPlay compatible format) with separated subtitles to Apple TV, subtitles from the file disappears, (like stop reading the file with manually added subtitles). This is because that only embedded subtitltes can be streamed via AirPlay, and that soft subtitles aka closed subtitles are external subtitles, which cannot be streamed together with the vid.

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