EBU-TT Subtitling Format Published for Industry Comments

The EBU has published a new Subtitling Format specification (EBU Tech 3350). The new format is called EBU Timed Text (EBU-TT) and provides an easy-to-use method to interchange and archive subtitles in XML.

EBU-TT is based on the W3C Timed Text Markup Language (TTML) specification. The EBU format can be seen as a constrained version of the W3C spec, aimed at providing a solution more tailored to broadcast operation. This is especially relevant as broadcasters are increasingly moving to file-based HDTV facilities, where subtitles are created, edited, exchanged and archived together with the content.

The previous EBU subtitling format was EBU STL (Tech 3264), developed at a time when information was still exchanged on floppy discs. However, as many broadcasters still use STL or have archived STL files, great care was taken in the development of EBU-TT to make sure that it provides backwards compatibility with its predecessor.

The EBU is also providing an XML Schema for EBU-TT.

Source: EBU