Captions and subtitles

Zidi can turn the speech in your video into text. You can read it as a transcript, or show it on the video as subtitles in the editor.

Available on: Free, Starter and Pro. Captions use no credits.

Transcript or subtitles?

One caption job gives you the text. Where it shows up depends on what you do next.

	Transcript	Subtitles
Where	Video page, Video Intelligence card	Editor, on the timeline
Shown on the video	No, text beside it	Yes, on the picture
Works on	Any video	Edited videos only
In downloads	No	Yes, burned in

So to put subtitles on a video, you edit it. See Open the editor.

Generate captions

Zidi does not make captions when you record or upload. You start them yourself, in one of two places.

From the video page

In the sidebar, click My Library and open a video.
In the Video Intelligence card, turn on the switch labelled Hidden — click to show.
Zidi shows "Caption generation started. This may take a few minutes." The transcript appears in the Transcript tab when it is ready.

Zidi also writes a summary from the transcript. See Video Intelligence for the transcript, summary and chat tools.

From the editor

Open the video in the editor. See Open the editor.
Click AI Tools. The Subtitles section is open.
Click Generate Captions.
When they are ready, Zidi shows "Captions generated successfully!" and adds them to the timeline.

If the video already has captions, for example because you turned on Video Intelligence, the section shows Load Captions to Timeline instead. Click it to put them on the timeline.

Language, cost and who can do it

Language: Zidi detects the spoken language on its own. You cannot choose it.
Cost: captions are free on every plan and use no credits.
Who: the person who made the video, or the owner of the workspace it is saved in.
Time: usually a few minutes.

Subtitles on the timeline

Subtitles appear on their own track. Zidi splits the text into short lines of up to 8 words. A new line starts at the end of a sentence or at a short pause.

The header of the section reads Subtitles with the number of cues, for example "Subtitles · 47 cues". Select a cue and press Delete to remove it. Right-click a cue for Go to caption, Duplicate and Delete.

Loading captions again replaces your timeline edits

If subtitles are already on the timeline, Load Captions to Timeline asks before it replaces them. Trims, deletions and moves you made on the timeline are lost if you confirm.

Edit subtitle text and timing

In AI Tools → Subtitles, click Edit Subtitles.
Each cue is listed as a segment, such as Segment 1. Change its text, start time or end time. Times use minutes, seconds and milliseconds, for example 01:05.250.
Delete a segment with its delete button, or add one with + Add Segment.
Click Save Changes.

Save Changes also replaces the stored transcript of the video you are editing. After Open in Editor, that is the edited copy, and your original video keeps its transcript. After Edit in Editor from a video card's menu, it is that video itself. See Open the editor.

Choose a style and position

Under Caption Style:

Position: Top, Center or Bottom.
Style: pick one of 36 preset looks. Six show at first. Click Show 30 More Styles to see the rest.

Presets include Highlight Blue, Neon Block, Bubble Pop, Dark Mode, Minimalist, Outlined, Elegant, Terminal and Youtuber. Each preset sets the font, colours and background together. There are no separate size or colour controls.

Translate subtitles

In AI Tools → Subtitles, click Translate Subtitles.
Pick a Target Language. The list has 91 languages, and English comes in four variants.
Click Translate. Zidi shows "Subtitles translated to" and the language.

The translation replaces the subtitle text on the timeline. Timing and style stay the same. Translation is free and uses no credits, but it counts toward the daily AI limit.

Export an SRT file

Click Export as SRT. Your browser downloads the subtitles on the timeline as an .srt file. You can upload it to other video sites and editing apps that accept SRT. SRT is the only subtitle file format Zidi exports. It works on every plan.

Remove subtitles

Click Remove Captions to take the subtitles off the timeline.

What viewers see

Edited video with subtitles: subtitles appear on the picture while it plays. They are also burned into the MP4 when you download it. To download, save with Save to Library, then click Download on the video page. See Export an edited video.
Any other video: the player shows no captions. If the video has a transcript, viewers can read it in the Transcript tab below the video on the share page.

Viewers cannot turn subtitles on or off. On an edited video they are always shown. The share page player has no captions button.

Troubleshooting

Message	What it means and what to do
"A caption generation job is already running for this video. Please wait for it to finish."	Captions for this video are already on the way. Wait for them.
"Too many requests. Please try again later."	You can start captions 5 times a minute. Wait a minute.
"Caption generation is taking longer than expected. Please reload to check status."	The editor stopped waiting after 30 minutes. Reload the editor to see if the captions are done.
"Processing is taking longer than expected. Please refresh the page to see updates."	If nothing appears after a few minutes, refresh the page.
"Caption generation failed"	Try again. Make sure the video has clear speech.
"Video not found or unauthorized"	Only the person who made the video, or the owner of the workspace it is saved in, can generate its captions.
"AI Tools require a video source. Open the editor from a video to use AI features."	Open the video page and click Open in Editor.
"No captions to export" or "No captions to translate"	The timeline has no subtitles. Generate or load captions first.
"Daily AI usage limit reached. It resets on a rolling 24-hour window."	Translation hit the daily AI limit. Try again later. See Daily AI limit.

If the wrong language was detected, there is no way to choose one yourself. Clear speech with little background noise gives the best result.