Subtitles

From VideoLAN Wiki
Revision as of 00:07, 1 April 2019 by DoesItReallyMatter (talk | contribs) (→‎Textual subs: Add Teletext)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
See also: Documentation:Subtitles

Subtitles are textual retranscriptions of audio tracks

Different kind of subtitles

1) Burned-in subtitles (or "hard subs")

Which can be compared to "hot iron cow branding" Now that they're burned in the image, there is no way to make them disappear properly, as they're totally part of the image. These burned-in subtitles won't appear in VLC subtitle menu and there is no way to hide them

2) Soft subtitles

Imagine our movie is a single AVI file. Those "soft" subtitles are hidden somewhere within the AVI file, but they're not burned in the image. You may find different languages for these soft subtitles (for example up to 8 different languages in the same AVI !) Those soft subtitles will appear in VLC subtitle menu (one menu bar = 1 language) and you can tick the one you want (or untick all if you don't want to see any subtitle) At least, you know they are embedded in the movie and you can make them appear or disappear at your wish.

3) External subtitles

These are external individual files: most usual are .srt files (which contain only 1 language) or the couple of files .sub + .idx that may contain up to 32 different languages !)


If you want those external subtitles files to be opened automatically when you double click a movie in Windows Explorer, then you'll have to give those external subtitles files the same name that your movie, for example :

Dark Star.avi <= the movie file

Dark Star.srt <= the external subtitle file

If both names match, then VLC will automatically open the subtitle file and display subtitles, as soon as you double click the movie file name. This 3rd kind of subtitles (external files) will appear in VLC subtitle menu, and you can tick /untick them, at your wish.

For more information see how to enable / use subtitles

Subtitles formats

There are a lot of different types of external subtitle files. Most contain textual data. That is the subtitle and a timestamp at which this subtitles is to be shown. Some of these allow for additional formatting, others don't.

Textual subs

Pictures-based subs

There are also subtitles which are essentially pictures instead of text. These kind of subtitles are used in DVDs, VCDs and the external VobSub files.

File Format/Container embedding subtitles

There are also some fileformats to which you can add subtitles. These include:

It is not easy to stream subtitles. DVB or DVD subtitles encapsulated in a TS MPEG stream is your best bet.

Subtitles support in VLC

Transcluded from Subtitles codecs
Subtitles Status
Subtitle Name Extension Subtitle Type Character Encoding Line Break Text Styling Metadata Info Timings Timing Precision VLC media player Support
AQTitle *.aqt Text-based None Yes No No Framings Dependent on Frame Yes (0.9.0 and over)
Blu-Ray N/A Image-based N/A N/A N/A No Elapsed Time Unknown Yes (1.1.0 and over)
CVD subtitles *.cvd Image-based N/A N/A N/A No Elapsed Time Unknown Yes
DKS *.dks Text-based None Yes No No Elapsed Time Unknown Yes (0.9.0 and over)
DVB subtitles N/A (in DVB streams) Image-based N/A N/A N/A No Elapsed Time Unknown Yes
DVD subtitles N/A Image-based Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
JACOsub *.jss Text-based None Yes Yes No Elapsed Time 10 Milliseconds (1/100th sec) Yes (0.9.0 and over), no styles
Kate N/A (inside OGG) Text-based None Yes Yes No Unknown Unknown Yes (0.9.0 and over), no styles
MicroDVD *.sub Text-based None Yes No No Framings Dependent on Frames Yes
MPEG-4 Timed Text .ttxt XML Unknown Unknown Yes No Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond Yes
MPL2 *.mpl/.txt Text-based None Yes No No Sequential Time 100 Milliseconds (1/10th sec) Yes, no italic
MPSub *.sub Text-based None Yes No Yes Sequential Time 10 Milliseconds (1/100th sec) Yes (0.9.0 and over)
OggWrit N/A (inside Oggs) Text-based None No Yes Yes Sequential Granules Dependent on Bitstream untested ???- Not specified yet.
Phoenix Subtitle *.pjs Text-based None No No No Framings Dependent on Frames Yes (0.9.0 and over)
PowerDivX .psb Text-based None No No No Elapsed Time 1 Second Yes (0.9.0 and over)
RealText / SMIL *.rt HTML-based Unicode (UTF-8) Yes Yes (SMIL) No Elapsed Time 10 Milliseconds (1/100th sec) Yes (0.9.0 and over)
SAMI *.smi HTML-based Unicode (Windows-1252) Yes Yes (CSS) Yes Framings Dependent on Frames Yes
Structured Subtitle Format .ssf XML None No Yes Yes Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond No
SubRip *.srt Text-based Informally Unicode Yes No No Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond (1/1000th sec) Yes
SubStation Alpha *.ssa/.ass Text-based None No Yes Yes Elapsed Time 10 Milliseconds (1/100th sec) Yes, 0.9.0 and over
SubViewer *.sub Text-based None Yes No Yes Elapsed Time 10 Milliseconds (1/100th sec) Yes
SVCD subtitles *.svcd Image-based N/A N/A N/A No Elapsed Time Unknown Yes
Teletext Unknown Text-based Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Yes
Universal Subtitle *.usf XML Unicode (UTF-8) No Yes (XML DTD) No Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond (1/1000th sec) Yes, 0.9.0 and over
VobSub *.sub, *.idx Image-based N/A N/A N/A N/A Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond (1/1000th sec) Yes
VPlayer *.txt Text-based None Yes No No Framing or Time 10 Milliseconds (1/100th sec) Yes
XSUB (DivX subtitles) N/A (embedded in .divx) Image-based N/A N/A N/A No Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond Yes (1.1.0 and over)

Container format

See Documentation:Modules/subtitle
subtitle
 VLC can decode this container.
The module name to use at the command line is subtitle.

The subtitles module is used to read subtitle text files.

Source code


See also

Retrieved from "https://wiki.videolan.org/index.php?title=Subtitles&oldid=60466"