Kannada subtitle generator
Upload a video, generate timed Kannada captions, fix the wording, and check the line length against what a Kannada reader actually sees rather than against a code unit count that runs roughly double.
A caption line has a length limit, and a tool measures your line against it. The usual way to measure a string in a browser is to ask for its length, which returns the number of UTF-16 code units. For English that is the same as the number of letters. For Kannada it is not.
ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು is one word that a reader sees as four units. Counted as code units it is eight. The syllable ಕ್ಕಿ is one unit to read and four to count. Across a full line the error compounds: ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ಕನ್ನಡ ಚಿತ್ರರಂಗ is twenty-one aksharas and thirty-one code units.
So a Kannada line that comfortably fits a forty-two character limit gets reported as breaking it, and an automatic line breaker splits it into two lines that did not need splitting. The caption gets worse because the ruler was wrong.
AutoCaption's validator and line breaker now count grapheme clusters instead. That line reads as twenty-one rather than thirty-one, which is the number a Kannada reader would give you. English captions are unaffected, because for Latin text the two counts are the same number.
It is worth being exact about the limit of this. Counting aksharas tells you how many units a reader perceives. It does not tell you how wide they are on screen, and a Kannada akshara carrying a vowel sign and a subscript consonant occupies more room, especially vertical room, than a Latin letter.
No character count of any kind measures rendered width. So forty-two aksharas is not the same physical line as forty-two English characters, and the honest claim is narrower than it might look: counting aksharas is closer to what a viewer sees than counting code units, and it removes a class of false warnings. Choosing the limit itself still means watching the captions in the player your audience uses.
Most language pages here are about how a script or a sound system trips up recognition. Kannada's loudest complaint is different, and simpler: platforms that ship Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam frequently do not ship Kannada.
A thread on r/kannada in late August 2026 gathered examples of exactly that, with readers comparing which services carry Kannada captions and which quietly skip the language. In the same month, an open-source video app merged a patch adding Kannada, along with several other Indian languages, to a language list they had been left out of entirely. The gap is a product decision, not anything about the language.
Which is the practical argument for keeping the subtitle file rather than relying on a platform's built-in captions. A file you hold is a file you can upload anywhere, convert, correct and re-use, and it does not disappear because a menu never listed your language.
Read the proper nouns first. Place names, film titles and people's names are where automatic recognition is least reliable in any language, and they are usually the words your audience will notice.
Then read the English. Kannada speech in Bengaluru mixes English words in constantly, and recognition renders them inconsistently, sometimes in Kannada script and sometimes in Latin. Pick one and hold to it across the file, so the captions do not read as though two people wrote them.
Then check the timing against the speech rather than against the clock, and only then check line lengths. The order matters: fixing wording changes line lengths, so measuring first wastes the pass.
Because most of them count code units rather than the units a reader sees. ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು is four visual units and eight code units, so a naive count reports it as twice its real width. A Kannada line that fits gets flagged as one that does not, and an automatic line breaker splits it earlier than it needs to.
Grapheme clusters, which is the closest available measure of what a reader perceives as one unit. On plain English text the two numbers are identical, so nothing changes for Latin captions. On Kannada, a line we previously measured at 31 now measures 21, which is what a Kannada reader would count.
No, and nothing here claims that. A Kannada akshara with a vowel sign and a subscript consonant takes more room, particularly vertical room, than a Latin letter. No character count of any kind measures rendered width. Counting aksharas is closer to what a viewer sees than counting code units, which is the honest claim, and the limit still needs a look at the actual player.
It is a recurring complaint. A thread on r/kannada in August 2026 collected examples of platforms that ship Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam but not Kannada, and one open-source subtitle app merged a patch that month adding Kannada to a language list it had been left out of. The gap is availability rather than anything about the language.
Yes. Kannada captions need a read for proper nouns, place names and English words spoken mid-sentence, which recognition tends to render inconsistently. The editor lets you fix the wording and the timing before you export.
SRT and WebVTT subtitle files, a plain transcript, or a video with the captions burned in. The subtitle file is the one to keep, because it can be re-used, corrected and converted later.
Generate Kannada captions, read them once, then export a subtitle file you keep.