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Captions & subtitles

Karaoke-style captions

Karaoke-style captions highlight each word at the moment it is spoken, the style popularized by social-video editors.

The effect depends entirely on word-level timestamps — approximate segment timing makes the highlight drift. It measurably lifts retention on short-form video, which is why every clip tool now offers it.

Related terms

Word-level timestampsWord-level timestamps attach a start and end time to every individual word in a transcript, rather than to who… Burned-in captionsBurned-in (or hardcoded) captions are rendered into the video frames themselves during export, becoming pixels… Forced alignmentForced alignment is the process of taking an existing transcript and an audio recording and computing exactly …

Frequently asked

What is Karaoke-style captions?

Karaoke-style captions highlight each word at the moment it is spoken, the style popularized by social-video editors.

Why does Karaoke-style captions matter?

The effect depends entirely on word-level timestamps — approximate segment timing makes the highlight drift. It measurably lifts retention on short-form video, which is why every clip tool now offers it.

What terms are related to Karaoke-style captions?

Closely related concepts: Word-level timestamps, Burned-in captions, Forced alignment — each has its own entry in this glossary.

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