How to Add Subtitles Inside Video Files Using Handbrake

If you have a foreign language video that you cannot understand and you might get lucky if someone has uploaded a subtitle for that video on English. Then you can use the VLSub extension in VLC Media Player to download the subtitles for that video. When you download the subtitles using VLC Media Player, it places the downloaded SRT subtitles file in the same folder as the video file and changes its name to match that of the video file. But if this subtitle file gets deleted accidentally then you will lose the subtitles once again.

One way to work around this problem is to merge the subtitles within the video file itself. This is possible using the open-source video encoder called Handbrake.

Here is how you can merge the subtitles with the video:

1. Launch Handbrake and click on the Source button in the toolbar. Then select the video file as the source file. Many different types of video file formats are supported.
2. In the output settings, select the Subtitles tab and then click on the Import SRT button to select the SRT subtitle file that you have downloaded using VLC Media Player.
3. You can also tune up other things in the video output section, but its not necessary. After this click on the Start button in the toolbar and it will proceed with the video encoding process.

The whole process may take a few minutes to finish and in the end you will have a video file that has subtitles merged inside it. You would not need to place any SRT subtitle file with the video. And Handbrake can create both the MP4 and MKV videos which means that you will also have the most popular formats that can be played in many many devices including iPhone and Android.

You can download Handbrake video transcoder from https://handbrake.fr/.