Displaying captions in Remotion

This guide explains how to display captions in Remotion, assuming you already have captions in the Caption format.

Prerequisites

Read Transcribing audio for how to generate captions.

First, the @remotion/captions package needs to be installed. If it is not installed, use the following command:

npx remotion add @remotion/captions

Fetching captions

First, fetch your captions JSON file. Use useDelayRender() to hold the render until the captions are loaded:

import { useState, useEffect, useCallback } from "react";
import { AbsoluteFill, staticFile, useDelayRender } from "remotion";
import type { Caption } from "@remotion/captions";

export const MyComponent: React.FC = () => {
  const [captions, setCaptions] = useState<Caption[] | null>(null);
  const { delayRender, continueRender, cancelRender } = useDelayRender();
  const [handle] = useState(() => delayRender());

  const fetchCaptions = useCallback(async () => {
    try {
      // Assuming captions.json is in the public/ folder.
      const response = await fetch(staticFile("captions123.json"));
      const data = await response.json();
      setCaptions(data);
      continueRender(handle);
    } catch (e) {
      cancelRender(e);
    }
  }, [continueRender, cancelRender, handle]);

  useEffect(() => {
    fetchCaptions();
  }, [fetchCaptions]);

  if (!captions) {
    return null;
  }

  return <AbsoluteFill>{/* Render captions here */}</AbsoluteFill>;
};

Creating pages

Use createTikTokStyleCaptions() to group captions into pages. The combineTokensWithinMilliseconds option controls how many words appear at once:

import { useMemo } from "react";
import { createTikTokStyleCaptions } from "@remotion/captions";
import type { Caption } from "@remotion/captions";

// How often captions should switch (in milliseconds)
// Higher values = more words per page
// Lower values = fewer words (more word-by-word)
const SWITCH_CAPTIONS_EVERY_MS = 1200;

const { pages } = useMemo(() => {
  return createTikTokStyleCaptions({
    captions,
    combineTokensWithinMilliseconds: SWITCH_CAPTIONS_EVERY_MS,
  });
}, [captions]);

Rendering with Sequences

Map over the pages and render each one in a <Sequence>. Calculate the start frame and duration from the page timing:

import { Sequence, useVideoConfig, AbsoluteFill } from "remotion";
import type { TikTokPage } from "@remotion/captions";

const CaptionedContent: React.FC = () => {
  const { fps } = useVideoConfig();

  return (
    <AbsoluteFill>
      {pages.map((page, index) => {
        const nextPage = pages[index + 1] ?? null;
        const startFrame = (page.startMs / 1000) * fps;
        const endFrame = Math.min(
          nextPage ? (nextPage.startMs / 1000) * fps : Infinity,
          startFrame + (SWITCH_CAPTIONS_EVERY_MS / 1000) * fps,
        );
        const durationInFrames = endFrame - startFrame;

        if (durationInFrames <= 0) {
          return null;
        }

        return (
          <Sequence
            key={index}
            from={startFrame}
            durationInFrames={durationInFrames}
          >
            <CaptionPage page={page} />
          </Sequence>
        );
      })}
    </AbsoluteFill>
  );
};

White-space preservation

The captions are whitespace sensitive. You should include spaces in the text field before each word. Use whiteSpace: "pre" to preserve the whitespace in the captions.

Separate component for captions

Put captioning logic in a separate component.
Make a new file for it.

Word highlighting

A caption page contains tokens which you can use to highlight the currently spoken word:

import { AbsoluteFill, useCurrentFrame, useVideoConfig } from "remotion";
import type { TikTokPage } from "@remotion/captions";

const HIGHLIGHT_COLOR = "#39E508";

const CaptionPage: React.FC<{ page: TikTokPage }> = ({ page }) => {
  const frame = useCurrentFrame();
  const { fps } = useVideoConfig();

  // Current time relative to the start of the sequence
  const currentTimeMs = (frame / fps) * 1000;
  // Convert to absolute time by adding the page start
  const absoluteTimeMs = page.startMs + currentTimeMs;

  return (
    <AbsoluteFill style={{ justifyContent: "center", alignItems: "center" }}>
      <div style={{ fontSize: 80, fontWeight: "bold", whiteSpace: "pre" }}>
        {page.tokens.map((token) => {
          const isActive =
            token.fromMs <= absoluteTimeMs && token.toMs > absoluteTimeMs;

          return (
            <span
              key={token.fromMs}
              style={{ color: isActive ? HIGHLIGHT_COLOR : "white" }}
            >
              {token.text}
            </span>
          );
        })}
      </div>
    </AbsoluteFill>
  );
};

Display captions alongside video content

By default, put the captions alongside the video content, so the captions are in sync.
For each video, make a new captions JSON file.

<AbsoluteFill>
  <Video src={staticFile("video.mp4")} />
  <CaptionPage page={page} />
</AbsoluteFill>