Getting a subtitle to work

Where do I put the file?

Put the .srt next to the video, give it the same file name, and almost every player finds it by itself. Dragging the file onto the player window works too.

So a video named Oppenheimer.2023.1080p.BluRay.mkv wants a subtitle named Oppenheimer.2023.1080p.BluRay.srt in the same folder.

VLC, MPV, MPC-HC, Kodi, Plex, Jellyfin and Infuse all read SRT, ASS and VTT. On a phone, MX Player and VLC do the same thing: keep the two files together and open the video.

If your player still shows nothing, open its subtitle menu and pick the track by hand. Some players load the file but leave it switched off.

Which of these files do I want?

Take the one whose release name matches your video file name. That name, the part that reads like WEB-DL or BluRay with a group at the end, says which copy of the film it was timed against, and a subtitle timed against a different copy will drift.

If nothing matches, drop the video on the match page. Your browser works out a fingerprint of the file and sends only that, never the video, and we look for a subtitle already paired with the same copy.

The words come too early or too late

That is a subtitle timed against another copy of the film. Two ways out.

The quick way: shift the timing in the player. In VLC the G and H keys move the subtitle back and forth by fifty milliseconds at a time, and MPV uses z and x. A constant offset is fixed in a few presses.

The better way: come back and take a file made for your exact release, then vote the bad one out of sync so the next person is warned. Those votes sit beside every file on the site, and they are the reason the list is useful.

If the drift grows as the film goes on rather than staying constant, the two copies run at different frame rates. A file with the right fps, shown on every row here, is the only real fix.

What do the labels on each file mean?

• HI marks a file that also writes out sounds, music and who is speaking, for people who cannot hear the audio.
• FORCED marks a file that translates only the parts in another language, the signs and the foreign lines, not the whole dialogue.
• AI marks a machine translation. We keep those in their own list and never mix them with work done by a person.
• WEB-DL, BluRay, HDTV, CAM say which copy of the film the subtitle was timed against.
• The green tick counts the people who said the timing is right, and the amber question mark counts the people who said it is wrong.

SRT, ASS, VTT: does it matter?

SRT is plain text and works everywhere; take it unless you have a reason not to. ASS carries fonts, positions and colours, which anime fansubs use for signs and karaoke. VTT is the format browsers use. SUB and SMI are older and some players refuse them.

Every file here downloads in one click, as it was uploaded, with nothing added to it. No account, no wait, no advertising inside the file.