Are the subtitles and movies out of sync in VLC Media Player? VLC is a popular open source media player. In an earlier guide, we discussed how you can add subtitles to movies and videos in the media player. Sometimes however you may run into subtitle and movie sync issues. For example when the subtitles and the movie come from two different sources, there could be a slight offset between the subtitle and movie. Fortunately VLC player has the track synchronization tool to help us sync subtitles with videos.
Sync subtitles with videos in VLC Media Player
Run VLC media player on your computer, open and play the movie and add its subtitles if they do not load automatically. Then click Tools >> Track Synchronization.
The Synchronization tab opens by default. You will see a screen like below.
You can see Audio/Video synchronization at the upper section and Subtitles/Video synchronization at the lower section. There is a “Subtitle track synchronization” box you can input or choose the time in seconds. If the subtitles are faster or ahead of the movie, you can input a positive time, say 1.5s to delay the subtitles so they can be synced with the movie; if the subtitles are late, use a negative time, such as -3s, -4s,or else, to hasten the subtitles to keep them synced with the video. After that press the Close button and go to play the movie again to make sure they are perfectly synced. If there is still a slight offset between the two, go to adjust the time in the Track Synchronization tab until you are satisfied.
At the bottom of this Synchronization tab, you can find two more options, subtitle speed and subtitle duration factor, that you only need to change in rare cases. For example, if the subtitles starts with proper sync, but lags behind when wraps up, you can increase the subtitle speed. If you want subtitles to be displayed on screen a bit longer, increase the value or time of the subtitle duration factor.