Input example
approved script + final voiceover audio for this publishing workflow
Workflow guide
Why auto captions rewrite your script
Auto captions are fast and convenient, but they produce transcriptions — not subtitles from your approved text. If the video already has a finished script, auto captions introduce unnecessary risk: the words that reach viewers may not be the words that were approved.
Output asset example
SRT/VTT subtitle assets plus quality notes for downstream upload or editor handoff
Common review point
Late narration edits shift subtitle timing against the approved script.
Decision points
What auto captions actually do
Auto captions run speech recognition on the audio track to produce a transcript, then time that transcript as subtitles. Every word is a model guess, not a copy of your script. For informal content this is fine. For approved scripts — product demos, course content, client deliverables — it means unreviewed text reaches the audience.
Common accuracy failures
Speech recognition typically struggles with proper nouns (brand names, personal names, place names), technical terms and product abbreviations, numbers and units, and words spoken quickly or with an accent. These are exactly the terms that matter most in script-approved content. An auto caption might turn a product name into a common word, change a version number, or drop a disclaimer entirely.
The script-first alternative
Script-first subtitle timing starts from the approved text and uses the audio only for timing alignment. The words in the output file are the words in the script — not what speech recognition heard. Quality checks flag lines where timing confidence is low, but they never replace script text with a transcription guess.
Practical workflow
- 1
Identify whether your video has an approved script (course outline, demo narration, TTS script, or client-approved copy).
- 2
Upload the approved script and final voiceover audio to TimedSubs instead of using platform auto captions.
- 3
Review quality issues, confirm timing, and download subtitle files that match the original wording exactly.
Product boundary
This workflow requires an existing approved script. TimedSubs is not a transcription tool and does not generate text from audio alone.
FAQ
When are auto captions acceptable?
Auto captions work well for informal content where exact wording is not critical — casual vlogs, live streams, rough drafts, or internal content where errors can be corrected in post. For content with approved scripts, client deliverables, legal or compliance requirements, or product-specific terminology, auto captions introduce avoidable text errors that need manual review. Script-first timing removes that review step because the wording starts correct.
Does TimedSubs use speech recognition?
TimedSubs uses audio analysis to place script lines on the timeline, but the script text is the source of truth. The words that appear in exported subtitle files are the words you submitted in the script — speech analysis informs timing and flags potential mismatches, but it does not rewrite or replace your approved wording. This is the core difference between a script-first subtitle tool and an auto captioning platform.