Overview: Subtitle locations

Subtitle locations describe whether timed content is carried separately, within a media container or in-band with another stream.

An external file has its own path and matching relationship. An embedded track belongs to the container, while in-band captions use another relationship with the media signal. The distinction matters when Emby discovers, selects or extracts a subtitle and when the receiving player needs to obtain it.

• External subtitle files
  An external subtitle file is a separate subtitle resource associated with a media item through naming or other library metadata.

• Embedded subtitle tracks
  An embedded subtitle track is a separately described timed component inside a media container rather than permanent text in the video pixels.

• In-band captions
  In-band captions are caption data carried within another media elementary stream and must be extracted and interpreted separately from its visible pictures.