How can I export Gladia transcripts to SRT/VTT for subtitles with accurate timing?

Most subtitle workflows break when timing drifts: words appear late, speakers flip, and your SRT/VTT files become painful to watch and edit. With Gladia, you already have the hard part solved—word-level timestamps and diarization. Exporting clean SRT or VTT is just a matter of formatting that data correctly.

Quick Answer: Gladia returns transcripts with word-level timestamps that you can transform into SRT or VTT by grouping words into subtitle chunks, converting timestamps to the proper format, and exporting them as .srt or .vtt files. You do this client-side or in your backend; Gladia provides the timing, you control the subtitle layout.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get the timestamps I need from Gladia to build SRT/VTT subtitles?

Short Answer: Use Gladia’s API to request transcripts with word-level timestamps, then read those timestamps from the JSON response to drive your subtitle timing.

Expanded Explanation:
Gladia’s transcription API returns each word with precise start (and typically end) timestamps. This is the foundation for accurate subtitles: you’re not guessing segment boundaries, you’re using the model’s actual timing. You can use these timestamps to generate frame-accurate subtitles, seek into a video, or align segments to specific points in a media player.

The API response can also include speaker diarization segments (“who said what”), which you can optionally map into your subtitle text (e.g., prepend Speaker 1:) for multi-speaker content like meetings, calls, or podcasts. Once you’ve fetched the transcript with timestamps, everything else—chunking into lines, choosing max duration, exporting SRT/VTT—is a pure formatting step you control in your codebase.

Key Takeaways:

• Gladia provides word-level timestamps in the transcript JSON response.
• Those timestamps are the timing backbone for SRT/VTT export and video alignment.

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What’s the step-by-step process to export Gladia transcripts as SRT or VTT?

Short Answer: Fetch the transcript with timestamps, group words into subtitle blocks, convert the timing to SRT/VTT formats, then write the output to .srt or .vtt files.

Expanded Explanation:
Exporting to SRT/VTT is a small transformation layer on top of Gladia’s API. You call Gladia’s async or streaming endpoints, get back a transcript with word timestamps, and then apply your own segmentation logic (e.g., max characters, max duration per subtitle). For SRT, you output sequentially numbered blocks; for VTT, you add a WebVTT header and timestamp cues.

The same process works whether you handle pre-recorded media (async REST) or live streams (WebSocket, generating rolling VTT for live captions). The only difference is whether you batch the transformation once the full transcript is ready, or do it incrementally as partial results arrive.

Steps:

1. Call Gladia’s API with timestamps enabled
   • Use the transcription endpoint (async or streaming) and ensure word-level timestamps are included in the response.
2. Parse the JSON transcript
   • Extract an ordered list of words with their start/end times and, optionally, speaker labels.
3. Chunk, format, and export
   • Group words into subtitle cues (based on time and length), convert timestamps to HH:MM:SS,ms (SRT) or HH:MM:SS.mmm (VTT), then write the formatted text to .srt or .vtt.

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What’s the difference between exporting Gladia transcripts as SRT vs VTT?

Short Answer: SRT is the simplest and most widely supported format; VTT (WebVTT) is more modern, supports extra metadata, and is often preferred for web players.

Expanded Explanation:
Both formats use timestamped cues, but they have slightly different syntax. SRT uses , as the milliseconds delimiter and requires numbered blocks; VTT uses . for milliseconds, requires a WEBVTT header, and supports richer metadata (styles, positioning, notes) that many HTML5 players can consume.

From Gladia’s perspective, the underlying data is the same—timestamps and text. You can build both exporters on the same internal representation of “subtitle cues” and choose the output format based on your target player (e.g., legacy broadcast vs web).

Comparison Snapshot:

• Option A: SRT
  • Simple, extremely common, uses HH:MM:SS,mmm
  • Good for editing tools and legacy pipelines.
• Option B: VTT (WebVTT)
  • Web-native, uses HH:MM:SS.mmm, allows richer styling/metadata.
  • Ideal for HTML5 players and modern streaming apps.
• Best for:
  • Need compatibility with older tools? Start with SRT.
  • Building a web-based player or modern OTT platform? Prefer VTT.

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How do I actually implement SRT/VTT export from Gladia’s API responses?

Short Answer: Implement a small formatter in your backend or client: convert Gladia’s timestamps into cue ranges, apply your line-breaking rules, and output to a file or stream.

Expanded Explanation:
Gladia’s job is to deliver accurate word timestamps and, optionally, “who said what.” Your job is to decide how to segment those into human-readable subtitles. In practice, you’ll define rules like “max 2 lines, 42 characters per line, 1–6 seconds per cue,” then iterate over the word list and build segments that respect these constraints.

This logic is lightweight enough to live in your server (Node, Python, Go, etc.), in a media-processing worker, or even in-browser if you’re generating downloadable subtitles for end users. Because it’s just formatting over JSON, it scales with your existing infrastructure—no extra GPU or ML overhead required.

What You Need:

• Access to Gladia’s transcript JSON with word-level timestamps (via REST or WebSocket).
• A small formatter function that:
  • Groups words into cue blocks (text + start + end).
  • Outputs SRT (index → time → text) or VTT (WEBVTT → cues) syntax.

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How can I make sure subtitle timing stays accurate and reliable across different media and languages?

Short Answer: Rely on Gladia’s word-level timestamps and multilingual models, then enforce consistent segmentation rules so timing and readability remain stable across your catalog.

Expanded Explanation:
Timing drift usually comes from two places: inaccurate ASR timestamps or inconsistent segmentation logic. Gladia addresses the first by exposing fine-grained word timestamps optimized for real-world audio—meetings with crosstalk, telephony at 8 kHz, accents, and background noise—so your subtitle cues are aligned with what people actually hear, not a “clean demo” ideal.

On your side, you control the subtitle UX: set fixed rules for cue length and duration, optionally factor in speaker changes from diarization (new speaker → new subtitle cue), and reuse the same logic for every asset. Combined, you get subtitles that feel natural for viewers and robust enough to drive downstream automation: searchable media, chaptering, or highlight extraction powered by accurate timing.

Why It Matters:

• Viewer trust and usability: Well-timed subtitles reduce cognitive load, improve accessibility, and prevent the “words lagging behind the speaker” effect that makes your product feel unreliable.
• Downstream automation: Accurate timestamps let you safely power search, skip-to-section, and analytics features on top of Gladia transcripts—without manual correction.

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Quick Recap

Gladia already gives you the timing backbone for subtitles: detailed, word-level timestamps and, if you need it, speaker diarization. To export SRT or VTT, you simply pull that data from the API response, group words into subtitle cues using your own readability rules, and render them in the syntax your video player expects. SRT is the universal baseline, VTT is the web-native option—both are straightforward to generate once you have reliable timestamps.

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