Captions, Arabic included

Captions come from the approved lines, timed to the final mix, kept editable in the master and burned in only where a delivery needs it.

Text and timing. The text is the approved line, never a transcript. The timing comes from the clean dialogue and voice-over as placed in the final mix, from word timings (a transcription tool such as ElevenLabs Scribe gives them), converted to frames.

Files. One SRT (SubRip, the common plain-text caption file) per language and per sequence, its name carrying the frame rate, so a 25 fps version never overwrites the 24 fps captions (Shaybar_30s_24p_AR.srt, Shaybar_30s_25p_AR.srt). Save it as UTF-8 text, the encoding that holds Arabic letters. Import it into the master's sequence, where it stays as the editable caption track (steps below).

Rules for every cue

• no overlaps;

• no cue outside the film;

• no cue shorter than 20 frames at 24 fps;

• watch any cue boundary 1–2 frames from a cut, and any cue faster than 17 characters a second;

• a caption never touches a super or a lower third.

Arabic captions. The text letter for letter, with no hidden direction marks. After import, look at every Arabic caption in Premiere's Program monitor: letters joined, right to left. If Premiere shows it broken, burn it in with the project's fonts, then check the burned-in file letter by letter in the brand font. Don't deliver a file where any letter fell back to another font. Or render the caption as a graphic.

Which delivery gets what

• TV in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA TV): open (burned-in) captions only;

• social: speech captions burned in;

• YouTube: burned in, plus the SRT as a sidecar file.

Burned-in captions are made only for the exports that need them; the master keeps the editable track.

Do it yourself

Import the captions (Premiere)

1. File › Import the SRT.

2. Drag it into the sequence.

Sources

• This Guide's own rules.