Video subtitles
FluentRead also reads captions in Udemy and Disney+ videos and in Teams, Zoom and Google Meet web meetings.
Under Video translation settings → General, two options are enabled by default and saved automatically:
- Automatically enable bilingual meeting captions attempts to enable available platform captions. You can disable this option and enable native captions yourself. Turning off video translation or hiding FluentRead captions restores the native display.
- Prefer human subtitles uses readable human subtitle tracks in the target language on YouTube, Udemy and Disney+. Missing tracks, inaccessible tracks and gaps fall back to translating the original captions. The source track is preserved.
Meeting support applies to browser web clients, including Zoom's /wc/ client. The platform, host or account must permit captions. FluentRead does not enable recording or transcription and cannot provide speech captions when the platform supplies none. Teams caption activation follows its meeting More actions and Language and speech menus when available; enable captions manually if controls have changed.
Udemy and Disney+ support uses displayed captions and available subtitle tracks. Their caption panel supports bilingual, translation only, original only, off and translation retry, including fullscreen. Track availability can depend on the player, account, region and content restrictions. This feature does not bypass access restrictions or generate audio captions for videos without subtitles.
Read original subtitles and translations together on YouTube and X, or show just one language.
The open subtitle menu stays available when X hides its playback controls. Switches, display modes, and AI subtitle status update as you use them. Click outside, use the close button, or press Esc to close it. Arrow keys move focus inside the menu without seeking the video.
The compact X menu puts display modes first. Subtitle options contains timing, downloads, and regeneration; use the back arrow or Esc to return. The source line shows native captions, saved local subtitles, or AI subtitles. When none are detected, it explains how to proceed and disables empty downloads. Native captions take priority over automatically restored AI subtitles; explicitly generated AI captions keep their own timeline.
A video with subtitles
- Make sure video subtitle translation is enabled.
- Open a YouTube or X video and find the FluentRead icon just before the fullscreen button. On X, it stays between picture-in-picture and fullscreen when controls reappear or fullscreen changes.
- Choose bilingual, translation-only, or original-only display.
FluentRead uses subtitle tracks or subtitle text provided by the page. It cannot guarantee translations where no subtitles are available. The subtitle translation service follows the webpage service by default; you can select a separate service in video translation settings.
When a YouTube or X subtitle timeline is available, FluentRead prioritizes the current caption and pretranslates up to eight distinct upcoming texts. The window normally covers the next 10 seconds for machine translation or 30 seconds for AI services, and expands for faster playback. Native tracks start prefetching as soon as they load. Repeated entries and expired captions do not consume upcoming slots, and seeking updates the prefetch window.
The subtitle menu also works in YouTube fullscreen. Prefetched originals and translations appear together in the same update. Previous translations clear when captions change, disappear, or you seek. At startup, after seeking to an untranslated position, or while the service is still responding, the original remains available; the translation is added only while its caption is still current.
For YouTube rolling captions, FluentRead matches the newly appearing sentence and playback time to prefetched translations without waiting for the previous line to scroll away. When no subtitle timeline is available, it also submits text during continuous updates. Translation speed still depends on the selected service.
To correct captions that are late or early, open Subtitle timing in the FluentRead menu on the playback page and click 0.5 s earlier / 0.5 s later. Negative values advance subtitles; positive values delay them, up to ±10 seconds. Reset timing returns to zero. The setting is saved for subsequent videos and moves both subtitle lines together. Playback position and downloaded subtitle timestamps stay unchanged. The menu indicates when timing adjustment is unavailable.
An X video without subtitles
The desktop Chrome / Edge extension can try local AI transcription:
- Download the Tiny or Base speech model in video settings. Initial downloads are about 100 MB and 150 MB respectively; extra runtime files may be needed later.
- Return to the X player and choose to generate AI subtitles.
- Wait for recognition. You can stop the job. Once recognition finishes, the timeline is available immediately; translations are fetched near the playback position. Original-only mode does not request translations.
Audio recognition runs locally; recognized subtitle text still goes to your translation service. Model downloads require a network connection. Processing depends on video length and your computer. Videos up to 20 minutes are supported; some formats or restricted media cannot be read.
Display and download
Adjust subtitle size, background, position, and width in video appearance settings. X subtitles stay within the video picture, with long lines wrapping inside portrait videos. Their position updates when the player resizes or enters fullscreen, and they try to avoid visible playback controls.
Use the menu to show or hide subtitles and download them. Completed X transcripts are cached locally for a limited time, so reopening the same video usually avoids another transcription. Cached subtitles appear immediately while translations become available, and the cache count refreshes when you return to video settings. Use re-recognition or clear the video cache to start fresh.
Missing or inaccurate subtitles
Check that subtitles are enabled and the video has a native track. For X AI subtitles, confirm the model download and try specifying the spoken language.
Recognition can mishear names or background audio, and translations can be wrong. Check important details against the original subtitles and audio.
Open Subtitle options → Regenerate this video to bypass its saved subtitles without clearing other videos or downloading an already installed model again. Existing subtitles remain available until model confirmation. Translation failures keep the recognized original and timeline; use Retry to recover without repeating speech recognition.