How to Enable or Disable Video Subtitles on DJI Drone

Are Video Subtitles on by default on DJI drones?

No. The toggle ships in the off position out of the box on every current DJI drone, so a new owner who imports a clip from the SD card will only see an MP4 file with no sidecar text file alongside it. DJI Fly remembers the choice across power cycles, so once you switch it on it stays on for the next flight.

What does the Video Subtitles toggle on a DJI drone actually record?

A standard SRT subtitle file written alongside the MP4 with the same filename. The file contains per-second telemetry samples for the flight — GPS coordinates, altitude above the take-off point, distance to home, the ISO value, the shutter speed, the f-number and the exposure value. Most editing software can read the SRT as overlay captions, and the raw text is plain enough to scrape for a flight log if you want a record of where each clip was shot.

When should I turn Video Subtitles on?

Any flight where you might need a paper trail for the shot or a quick reference for the camera settings. Commercial surveying jobs, evidence flights, and any session where the metadata could matter weeks later all benefit from the SRT sitting next to the MP4. For quick recreational flights where the footage is going straight to social, the file is just extra noise on the SD card.

Does the Video Subtitles toggle burn captions onto the recorded footage?

No. The toggle only writes a separate SRT sidecar file — it never paints text onto the MP4 itself. The video file is identical with the toggle on or off, so switching it on costs nothing in terms of the recorded image. If you want the telemetry baked into the picture you have to import the clip into editing software and burn the SRT in on export.

Can I read the SRT file the drone produces?

Yes. The SRT is a plain-text file you can open in any text editor, and the timestamps line up to the second with the MP4. Drone pilots who need a flight log will often pull the SRT, strip the camera settings, and keep the GPS and altitude rows as a per-clip record. Editing software like Premiere, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut will also import the SRT as a subtitle track so the telemetry can be toggled on or off in the timeline.

Does Video Subtitles slow down the SD card or fill it up faster?

No, not in any way you will notice. The SRT file is a tiny plain-text file — a few kilobytes per minute of footage at most, compared to hundreds of megabytes for the MP4 itself. The write happens in parallel with the video stream and the drone is not waiting on it. On a half-full card with a long flight session, the SRT files all together still come in under a single MP4 clip.

Why is the SRT file missing even with Video Subtitles on?

Three things to check. First, confirm the toggle did not get reset by a DJI Fly update — open Settings then Camera and look at the colour of the switch. Second, check you imported both files from the SD card and not just the MP4, because some import workflows filter out non-video files by default. Third, make sure the camera was actually in video mode for the clip in question — Video Subtitles is video-mode only, so a photo capture or a QuickShot will never produce an SRT.

Does Video Subtitles work the same way on every DJI drone?

Yes. The Video Subtitles toggle lives at the same path under Settings then Camera in DJI Fly on the DJI Neo 2, DJI Mini 5 Pro, DJI Avata 2, DJI Air 3 Pro, DJI Mini 4 Pro and DJI Mavic 4 Pro, and the SRT file it writes carries the same kind of telemetry — GPS, altitude, ISO, shutter, f-number and exposure value. The only thing that changes is the sensor and the airframe the metadata is describing.