Doom9's Forum - View Single Post - Heads-up regarding HTML5 and subtitles

yuvi · 2nd May 2010, 18:46

SSA/ASS have no real spec other than source code, not exactly something to put in a standard. Even the positioning isn't well defined, especially with anamorphic video.

The problem with supporting container subtitles is that then you have to support qt/mp4 timed text, kate, and ssa/ass to cover the major supported containers. Which is more complex than needed given that there isn't a non-Apple renderer for qt/mp4 timed text that doesn't ignore styles+positioning, and there's only a single library for the other two formats. It would be nice, but I don't see multiple browsers doing the work.

Given how much software can already output SRT, I'd say that a new format where well-formed basic SRT (no overrides/tags, only UTF-8/16, strictly consecutive numbers starting at 1, no extraneous spaces/newlines, etc.) is still valid would be nice. Or ignore that and maybe have basic SRT as a second fallback format.

No real need to keep compatibility with all the random permutations of SRT given that various parsers don't accept subsets of that as TheFluff said.

EDIT: One other thing, whatever format you come up with, do try to encourage overlayed text + optional outlining and drop shadow (see most SSA/ASS, DVD subtitles, and nico video comments) instead of the annoying boxes in many formats (CEA-608 closed captions, qt/mov timed text, youtube annotations).

2nd May 2010, 18:46	#9 \| Link
yuvi Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 30	SSA/ASS have no real spec other than source code, not exactly something to put in a standard. Even the positioning isn't well defined, especially with anamorphic video. The problem with supporting container subtitles is that then you have to support qt/mp4 timed text, kate, and ssa/ass to cover the major supported containers. Which is more complex than needed given that there isn't a non-Apple renderer for qt/mp4 timed text that doesn't ignore styles+positioning, and there's only a single library for the other two formats. It would be nice, but I don't see multiple browsers doing the work. Given how much software can already output SRT, I'd say that a new format where well-formed basic SRT (no overrides/tags, only UTF-8/16, strictly consecutive numbers starting at 1, no extraneous spaces/newlines, etc.) is still valid would be nice. Or ignore that and maybe have basic SRT as a second fallback format. No real need to keep compatibility with all the random permutations of SRT given that various parsers don't accept subsets of that as TheFluff said. EDIT: One other thing, whatever format you come up with, do try to encourage overlayed text + optional outlining and drop shadow (see most SSA/ASS, DVD subtitles, and nico video comments) instead of the annoying boxes in many formats (CEA-608 closed captions, qt/mov timed text, youtube annotations). Last edited by yuvi; 2nd May 2010 at 19:10.