Captions that pop.
Word by word.
shortube.pro transcribes your audio with Whisper, aligns every word to the millisecond, and burns animated karaoke-style captions permanently into every Short. No manual syncing. No separate caption file to manage.
of short-form video watched muted
Captions are not optional — they are the primary way most viewers consume your content.
average watch-time increase
Videos with captions consistently outperform uncaptioned equivalents in watch-through rate studies.
word error rate
Whisper large-v3 achieves near-human accuracy on clear English speech across accents and technical vocabulary.
Why word-level
Why word-level captions outperform sentence captions
The science behind the karaoke-style format that every top short-form creator uses.
Matches reading rhythm to speech
Each word highlights exactly when it is spoken. Viewers' eyes follow the highlighted word without conscious effort, keeping attention anchored.
Keeps viewers engaged mid-clip
The animation creates forward motion. Even during a slow moment in the audio, the moving highlight gives viewers something to track.
Signals production quality
Word-level captions are associated with high-quality creator content. They immediately signal that care went into the Short.
Works on every platform and player
Because captions are burned into the video file, they appear identically on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and any other platform — no subtitle track required.
Caption format comparison
Sentence captions
Full sentence appears at once. Static. Common in older editing workflows.
Word-level (karaoke)
Each word highlights as it is spoken. Animated. shortube.pro default.
No captions
Full audio experience required. Loses 85% of mobile feed viewers.
How captions are generated
From audio waveform to burned-in animated overlay — 4 automated steps.
Audio extraction
FFmpeg isolates the audio track from the source video file for clean transcription input.
Whisper transcription
OpenAI Whisper large-v3 converts speech to text with word-level millisecond timestamps.
Caption formatting
Each word is assigned a position, font size, colour and highlight state tied to its timestamp window.
FFmpeg render
The animated caption overlay is burned into each frame of the 9:16 render. Permanently embedded — no separate track.
Powered by Whisper
Near-human transcription accuracy
shortube.pro uses OpenAI Whisper large-v3 — the most accurate open transcription model available. It handles:
- Indian English accents
- Technical and domain-specific vocabulary
- Fast speech and overlapping dialogue
- Background noise in live recordings
- 97+ languages
Tips for best caption accuracy
Record in a quiet environment
Background noise is the #1 cause of transcription errors.
Speak clearly at a moderate pace
Very fast speech increases word error rate, especially for technical terms.
Avoid heavy background music during speech
Music blends with speech in the audio mix and confuses the model.
Use a decent microphone
USB or XLR microphones dramatically improve accuracy over laptop mics.
Caption questions answered
Can I change the caption font, colour or position?
Caption style presets are available in the project settings. Custom font and colour controls are on the roadmap.
What happens if the transcription gets a word wrong?
You can view the transcript before export and flag corrections. We are building an inline transcript editor for direct corrections before render.
Does it work for non-English languages?
Whisper supports transcription in 97+ languages. The animated caption overlay works for any language. Right-to-left script support is in development.
Can I turn off captions if I don't want them?
Yes. The caption option can be disabled per project in the project settings before rendering.
Are captions accessible to screen readers?
Because captions are burned into the video as visual overlays, they are part of the image rather than a separate accessibility track. We recommend also uploading with a separate SRT file for full accessibility.
Add captions to your Shorts automatically
Every project you create includes animated word-level captions at no extra cost.
Start free