Generate subtitles automatically

Speech Revolutions can hand you finished subtitle files, not just raw text. Set output_type to "srt" or "vtt" and the transcript comes back as a ready-to-ship caption file — correctly numbered, time-cued, and line-wrapped. No post-processing of word timestamps required. This tutorial covers picking the format, saving the file, and the choice between shipping it as a sidecar or burning it into the video.

SRT vs VTT

Both are supported values of output_type (alongside txt, json, docx, and pdf). They differ only in where they're used:

srt (SubRip) — the universal default. Accepted by virtually every video player, editor, and platform (YouTube, Premiere, VLC). Reach for this unless you specifically need VTT.
vtt (WebVTT) — the web-native format for the HTML5 <track> element. Use it when captions are served to a browser <video> player.

See the Output formats & subtitles guide for the full list of formats and what each returns.

Generate and save the file

Pass the format as output_type, then call result.save(). It writes the raw content to disk and appends the correct extension if your path has none — save("captions") with output_type="srt" writes captions.srt — and returns the path it wrote.

from speechrevolutions import SpeechRevolutions

client = SpeechRevolutions()  # reads SPEECHREVOLUTIONS_API_KEY

result = client.transcribe(
    "talk.mp4",              # audio or video: local path, URL, bytes, or file object
    output_type="srt",       # ask Speech Revolutions for SubRip captions (use "vtt" for WebVTT)
)

path = result.save("captions")  # writes captions.srt; returns the path
print(f"Wrote {path}")

Timestamps are already handled

When you ask for srt or vtt, Speech Revolutions does the cueing for you — you don't need to request word_timestamps or assemble cues from .words yourself. The file is ready to load into a player as-is.

Sidecar vs burned-in

Once you have the file, there are two ways to get captions in front of a viewer, and the right one depends on where the video plays.

Approach	What it is	Best when
Sidecar	Ship the `.srt`/`.vtt` as a separate file alongside the video; the player overlays it at playback.	You control the player (a web `<video>`, a streaming platform, VLC). Viewers can toggle captions on/off and you can serve multiple languages.
Burned-in	Render the captions permanently into the video's pixels, so they're part of the picture.	The destination has no caption support or you can't trust it to — social autoplay clips, embedded GIFs, downloads. Always visible; not toggleable.

Sidecar is the default and needs nothing beyond the saved file. For a browser player, point a <track> at the VTT file:

player.html

<video controls>
  <source src="talk.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
  <track src="captions.vtt" kind="subtitles" srclang="en" label="English" default />
</video>

Burning in happens outside Speech Revolutions — Speech Revolutions produces the subtitle file; a video tool renders it into the frames. The common tool is ffmpeg, which reads your saved .srt:

burn-in with ffmpeg

# ffmpeg is third-party tooling, not part of Speech Revolutions — shown for completeness.
ffmpeg -i talk.mp4 -vf "subtitles=captions.srt" talk-captioned.mp4

Which should I ship?

Prefer sidecar whenever the player supports it — it keeps captions accessible, toggleable, translatable, and re-editable without re-encoding the video. Reach for burned-in only when the playback surface won't render a separate track.

That's subtitles end to end: one output_type, one save(), and a delivery choice. To generate captions from an upload with a live progress bar, combine this with the meeting-app tutorial; for the full format reference see Output formats & subtitles.