Importing .srt subtitles into Remotion

If you have an existing .srt subtitle file, you can import it into Remotion using parseSrt() from @remotion/captions.

If you don't have a .srt file, read Transcribing audio for how to generate captions instead.

Prerequisites

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

npx remotion add @remotion/captions # If project uses npm
bunx remotion add @remotion/captions # If project uses bun
yarn remotion add @remotion/captions # If project uses yarn
pnpm exec remotion add @remotion/captions # If project uses pnpm

Reading an .srt file

Use staticFile() to reference an .srt file in your public folder, then fetch and parse it:

import { useState, useEffect, useCallback } from "react";
import { AbsoluteFill, staticFile, useDelayRender } from "remotion";
import { parseSrt } from "@remotion/captions";
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 {
      const response = await fetch(staticFile("subtitles.srt"));
      const text = await response.text();
      const { captions: parsed } = parseSrt({ input: text });
      setCaptions(parsed);
      continueRender(handle);
    } catch (e) {
      cancelRender(e);
    }
  }, [continueRender, cancelRender, handle]);

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

  if (!captions) {
    return null;
  }

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

Remote URLs are also supported - you can fetch() a remote file via URL instead of using staticFile().

Using imported captions

Once parsed, the captions are in the Caption format and can be used with all @remotion/captions utilities.