Hardcode subtitles with VLC

• Open VLC
• Select Media > Stream (or CTRL+S by default)
• Click +Add… to add your video file
• Tick the Use a subtitle file box and choose your .SRT file with Browse…
• Click Stream
• Verify the Source is correct on the next window and then click Next
• Choose a destination file using the Add button while selecting File from the dropdown menu (add .mp4 to your file name) and click Next
• Activate Transcoding should be ticked by default, choose your profile (Default H.264 + MP3).
• Select the Options button of the selected profile (default icon is a wrench)
• Go to the Subtitles tab and tick the Subtitles box and the Overlay subtitles on the video box
• Save and then click Next
• On the Option Setup page click Stream

While H264/MOV profile is selected, you have different options to choose video quality. You can either set a bitrate or a number between 1 and 100 for 'Video Quality'. The lower the number, the higher the quality.

For Chorée Hardcoded subtitles, I used 20 as an equivalent to video quality 23 from Kdenlive. The file size was nearly the same.