How to Fix Incorrect Subtitle Timing

When subtitles don't line up with speech, the fix depends on the pattern of the error. Play the video at three points — near the start, the middle and the end — and note how far off the subtitles are.

1. Constant offset

Every subtitle is early or late by the same amount (say, 2 seconds). This usually happens when an intro was added or removed after the captions were made.

Fix: shift every cue by the same amount. Our SRT tool has a "Shift all cues" control; most subtitle editors do too. Shift by -2000 ms to make subtitles appear 2 seconds earlier.

2. Progressive drift

Subtitles are close at the start but increasingly late (or early) towards the end. This points to a frame-rate mismatch — for example captions timed at 25 fps applied to a 23.976 fps video.

Fix: scale all timestamps by the ratio of the frame rates (e.g. 25 / 23.976 ≈ 1.0427), then check the result. Drift can't be fixed with a single shift.

3. Section-specific errors

Timing is fine except after a certain point. The video was probably re-edited — a segment added, removed or replaced.

Fix: shift only the cues after the edit point, and re-time the cues in the changed section against the video.

4. Individual cues badly timed

Some cues appear too early, linger too long, or flash by. This is typical of automatic captions.

Fix: re-synchronize cue by cue against the audio. This is real synchronization work and requires the source media.

After any fix

Re-validate the file: shifting can push cues below zero, and manual edits can create overlaps or out-of-order cues.