Caption requirements

FYC screener closed captions:
what the Academy asks for, and what we could not verify.

For the Academy Screening Room, yes, captions are required: the Academy's current technical specifications say every film must be submitted with English captions, in WebVTT (.vtt), with no more than 42 characters per line, three lines and seven seconds per caption. We could not verify a Television Academy or guild caption rule today, so check those directly with the organisation before you deliver.

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By uncompressed.io · Updated September 2026

The rule we could verify

The Academy wants English captions,
in WebVTT, for every film.

The Academy’s Screening Room technical specifications are direct. All video content “must be submitted with corresponding English captions”, plus English subtitles where required, and both “should be submitted in WebVTT format (.vtt)”. The page carries no edition year beyond a 2026 copyright line, so read it again on the day you submit.

What the spec says

What to check before you upload

Language

English captions on every film,plus English subtitles if required

A non-English film needs both:captions and a subtitle track

Format

WebVTT (.vtt). SRT can be converted,but .vtt is what the Academy prefers

The file ends in .vtt and opensin a text editor starting with WEBVTT

Linelength

42 characters per line at most,spaces and punctuation included

Count the longest lines,not just the average ones

Lines percaption

Three lines or fewer.Four or more lines is a rejection

No cue with a fourth line,including stacked speakers

Duration

Seven seconds at mostfor a single caption event

Split any cue that holdson screen longer than that

Sound

Square brackets for non-speechaudio such as effects and music

[music], [door slams] and the like,added wherever they matter

Speakers

Bracketed character namesbefore the dialogue. The <v> voicetag is not accepted

Search the file for <vand replace any hits with[Name] style tags

Sync

The VTT must align with the videothat goes live, conformed to itsframe rate. A new video needs a new VTT

Caption the final export itself,and confirm its frame rate(23.976, 24, 25 or 29.97)

Audiodescription

Optional AD track, already synced,with the same channel countas the streaming asset

Match the channel layoutof the picture's audio

All rules from the Academy Screening Room technical specifications, fetched 17 September 2026. The 42-character line is not unusual: Netflix's English (USA) timed text guide uses the same figure.

What we could not verify

The Emmy and guild rules did not load,
so this page does not state them.

We could not find a caption rule for Emmy FYC programming on an official page today: the Television Academy page expected to hold it returned an error, and its rules PDF could not be read. The Television Academy’s FAQ, which did load, says only that eligible programs are screened on digital platforms, either the distributor’s own or the Academy’s viewing site. It says nothing about screener captions.

The same goes for SAG-AFTRA, the DGA and the WGA: none of their rules pages could be fetched. So this page states no Television Academy caption rule and no guild caption rule. If you are delivering to any of them, ask the organisation, or the platform hosting its screeners, for the current format, line length and deadline in writing. If they answer with a spec sheet, that sheet overrides anything here.

Making the file

Generate a draft, correct it, download the .vtt,
then check it by hand.

Caption the export you will submit

Upload the final screener export and click Generate captions. A speech-to-text service writes the draft, and only when you click. Captioning an earlier cut and reusing the file is how sync goes wrong.

Correct the text in the editor

The transcript follows playback; click a line to jump to it and edit it inline. Fix names and jargon first, then type the [Speaker] tags and [sound] cues yourself; do not count on the draft to label speakers.

Download the .vtt

The caption panel downloads the track as .vtt or .srt. The .vtt is the stored track itself, the format the Academy prefers. The .srt is a conversion for other destinations, and it drops any <v> voice tags.

Check it against the spec

Open the .vtt in a text editor or subtitle tool. Check line length, the three-line limit, the seven-second limit and any <v> tags, and fix cue timing there. The editor here changes caption text; it does not enforce those limits.

Minutes, before you start

Caption generation is metered in minutes per calendar month by plan. The free Starter plan includes 20 minutes a month, enough for a short film of up to that length, not a feature. Lite includes 10 hours, Pro 25 hours and Max 50 hours. Owners can always download their own caption files; other people can download them only from Public or Unlisted films that are not in the vault.

Where this is the wrong tool

This is a drafting and export tool,
not a certified caption service.

uncompressed.io does not deliver to the Academy Screening Room or any awards platform; you upload the film and the .vtt through that platform yourself. Nothing here checks a file against the Academy’s rules, and no other FYC platform requirement is claimed. The W3C’s accessibility guidance says automatic captions have to be edited for accuracy, and an awards submission is not the place to skip that.

If the distributor’s contract names a captioning vendor or a formal quality check, or the film has dense overlapping dialogue, music cues and several languages, use a professional captioning service. For a short or a straightforward feature, a generated draft that you correct and check line by line is a reasonable way to get a clean .vtt. The broader workflow is in captions for client video work, and the format trade-offs in burned-in subtitles vs an .srt file.

Questions

Frequently asked

Does the Academy accept .srt files?

Its technical specifications say it can convert SRT files but prefers to receive .vtt. Send .vtt so the file you checked is the file that plays. Both formats download here, and the .vtt is the stored track itself, not a conversion.

Do Emmy FYC screeners need closed captions?

We could not confirm it today. The Television Academy page that was said to carry the rule returned an error, and its rules PDF could not be read. Its FAQ says only that eligible programs are screened on digital platforms. Ask the Television Academy, or your distributor's awards team, for the current requirement in writing.

What about SAG-AFTRA, DGA or WGA screeners?

None of the three guild rules pages could be read today, so this page states no guild caption rule. Ask each guild or its screening platform what caption format it takes.

Can I send auto-generated captions as they come out?

Not safely. The W3C accessibility guidance says automatic captions do not meet accessibility requirements unless they are confirmed fully accurate, and the Academy spec adds formatting rules that no generated draft is guaranteed to follow. Treat the generated track as the typing, then do the checks in the table above.

I replaced the screener file. Do I need new captions?

The Academy says a new video file needs a new, aligned VTT file. The same logic applies here: captions left on an earlier cut may no longer match a replaced file, so generate or check the track again against the new export before you download it.

Draft the caption track, then check it against the spec

Generate captions from the exact export you are submitting, correct them, and download the .vtt. The free Starter plan includes 20 caption minutes a month; Lite includes 10 hours.