Extract Chinese hardsubs from a drama or film into an SRT file
Many Chinese dramas and films circulate with the Chinese subtitles stamped into the image. Upload the episode and you get those lines back as a timed SRT and VTT, in simplified or traditional characters exactly as they appear on screen. A clip of up to 5 minutes is free in full. A full episode or film costs $5, paid once, for up to 3 hours of video.
- Chinese characters copied as printed, simplified or traditional, never converted
- Full-width punctuation such as ，。？ left as it appears in the picture
- Chinese above English on a two-line subtitle stays two lines in the same cue
- Each cue timed from the video, close to the half second
- One episode or film per job, up to 3 hours for $5
Why get the Chinese text out of the picture
An SRT of the Chinese lines is something you can work with. Translators load it into a subtitle editor and write their own version cue by cue. Fan subbers fix a weak official translation against the real Chinese. Learners keep the file open next to the episode, look up words, and copy sentences into flashcards with the timestamp still attached.
None of that works while the characters are pixels. A screen reader, a dictionary add-on or a search box cannot see text that is part of the image, so the first step is always turning the band of subtitles into real characters with times.
How the Chinese band is read
This page starts the tool with Chinese selected, which tells the vision model what script to expect. The lower part of each frame is taken two times per second, and a frame that looks identical to the previous one is dropped. The rest are read in numbered batches, and a line that repeats across several frames is joined into a single cue with one start and one end.
Characters are written letter for letter. Simplified stays simplified, traditional stays traditional, and nothing is corrected or completed. If your drama shows the subtitles in the upper part of the frame, choose the top area before you start.
Two-line subtitles and punctuation
- Chinese on one line and English underneath are both kept, in the order they appear, so you can delete one language later in an editor
- Full-width commas, periods and question marks are not swapped for Western ones
- Line breaks inside a subtitle follow the picture, up to three lines
- Song lyrics shown as subtitles are read like any other line; decorative title cards and on-screen signs are left out
- Files are UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so older players and TVs display the characters
Want English instead
Switch the output to Translated or Bilingual before uploading and pick a target language. You still get an SRT of the Chinese as read from the screen, so you can compare the two or hand the Chinese to a human translator.
How the tool works, what it costs and how your files are handled is on the Extract Hardcoded Subtitles page; prices for every tool are on the pricing page.
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Questions and answers
Can ChatGPT read the Chinese subtitles in my drama?
From a single screenshot, usually yes, and it handles Chinese characters well. A 45-minute episode has hundreds of subtitle changes, and a chat assistant has no way to know from still images when each one starts and ends. This tool reads the video itself and returns a timed file.
Does it work with traditional characters from Taiwan or Hong Kong releases?
Yes. Characters are copied as shown, so traditional text stays traditional. Nothing is converted between the two scripts.
What does a full episode cost?
A clip of up to 5 minutes is free in full. Anything longer is $5, paid once, for up to 3 hours. Unlimited at $19 a week covers up to 6 hours per job.
Will small or stylized fonts be read?
Clear subtitles in a normal font read best. Tiny, blurry or heavily outlined text over a busy scene can be misread or skipped, so check the free first part of your own episode before paying.
Can I upload a link instead of a file?
A public Google Drive, Dropbox or direct file link works. YouTube links are not accepted by this tool.
Who can see my video?
Only you can open the job. Frames go to an AI model provider only to be read and are not used for training. Jobs without an account are deleted after 7 days, and you can delete yours whenever you like.