For anyone looking to add subtitles or captions onto a video in Final Cut, X-Title Importer by Spherico makes pretty short work of the job.
To start, you’ll need a supported source format for your captions. We used a .SRT file, but XTI supports over a dozen formats including Web VTT, Spruce STL and YouTube SBV.
You’ll also want a template for your subtitles. X-TI includes a basic template, TextUp, which you can modify within the application. For captions with a dynamic background, like a box whose width changes depending on the width of the text, you’ll need to go a little further. Installing one of Spherico’s other applications, TitleExchange, will add a TextUp Box template that can achieve the effect. Additionally, one could create their own by modifying FCPX’s own Basic Title in Motion with a couple clone layers.
Once you have your template settled, its a simple matter of selecting your source file within the application and converting it to a .fcpxml file. Open that .fcpxml file with Final Cut and it will create a new project within the library of your choice. The project will include all of your captions added as titles, below which you can simply include your original video.
