Subtitle Files

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The following subtitle formats are supported with Cinegy Subtitling Service:

SRT (SubRip file format) – it is a popular format used for creating subtitles for videos. It is a plain text file with the .srt extension that contains a sequential number of subtitles, start and end timestamps, and subtitle text, allowing subtitles to be displayed at specific times during playback.
EBU-STL (Subtitling Data Exchange Format) – the STL format is a binary format developed by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU Tech 3264). It’s widely used as an archiving and exchange format. The file has the .stl extension.

SRT File Formatting

Each subtitle in the file is assigned a sequential index number, starting from 1.

Timing information: Each subtitle consists of two timestamp lines. The first line indicates the start and end times of the subtitle, and the second line is usually left blank.

SRT files can be created and edited using any plain text editor. It’s important to ensure the timing information is accurate, as it determines when the subtitles are displayed during video playback.

Here is an example of an SRT with six subtitles:

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00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:12,500
Welcome to the sample video.

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00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:17,700
<b>This is an example of a subtitle.</b>

3
00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:17,700
{\i1}In this example{\i0},

4
00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:17,700
<u>we will walk through the process</u>

5
00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:17,700
<font color="green">of creating subtitles for video</font>

6
00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:17,700
{\a5}using different text formatting.

The SRT format supports basic text formatting which is derived from HTML:

Bold — text or {\b1}text{\b0}.

Italic — text or {\i1}text{\i0}.

Underline — text or {\u1}text{\u0}.

Note	Currently, the text style formatting is only topical for the DVB encoder.

Font color — text, where the following colors are supported: red, green, black, white, yellow, blue, magenta, and cyan.

Note	Alternatively, instead of a color name, you can specify the color code in ARGB format corresponding to the basic color, for example `<font color="FF00FF00">text</font>`, which corresponds to green.

Note	According to the Advanced Teletext Specification, Alpha Black should be used with caution as it is interpreted by some existing Level 1 and Level 1.5 decoders.

Note	Black color is encoded for the Teletext as white color by Cinegy Subtitling Service because it can be interpreted by the decoder incorrectly.

Line position — {\an1}…{\an9} or {\a1}…{\a3}, {\a5}…{\a7} and {\a9}…{\a11}, which performs the following line alignment:

{\an7} or {\a5}
Top left

{\an8} or {\a6}
Top center

{\an9} or {\a7}
Top right

{\an4} or {\a9}
Middle left

{\an5} or {\a10}
Middle center

{\an6} or {\a11}
Middle right

{\an1} or {\a1}
Bottom left

{\an2} or {\a2}
Bottom center

{\an3} or {\a3}
Bottom right

You can use any combination of text formatting by placing formatting tags one after the other. For example, to bold text and make it green, use the following formatting:

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00:00:01,100 --> 00:00:10,100
{\i1}<b><font color="green">Bold green text is here</font></b>{\i0}

To use triangle brackets in subtitle text, use the \ character before < in the text line to avoid being read by service as a tag:

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00:00:01,100 --> 00:00:10,100
Some text \<more text in triangle brackets>

Note	By default, subtitle text is displayed in white on a black background.