Mplayer's subtitle format

Here is another  subtitle format called Mplayer's.

Mplayer's format for subtitles is called "MPsub"[1]. It is very
minimalistic (but I think that is good) and similar to the Quicktime
format, "QText"[2]. After a very quick comparison, the difference seems
to be:

   1. For each line, MPsub gives the start and duration, QText only
      gives the start. To remove the text from the screen, just
      display an empty line. (QText's approach seems easier, with less
      chance of error.)

   2. There are no options or attributes in MPsub, while QText has a
      small set of declarations to choose font, font size, color and a
      few similar things.

   3. Qtext allows clickable text (one of the attributes of a text
      line can be a URL).

It seems that the two formats could be easily merged. The structure is
the same, there is just some minor difference in punctuation. (I would
propose to use the CSS property names, rather than the QText ones,
though: 'fontstyle' -> 'font-style', 'justify' -> 'text-align', 'size'
-> 'font-size', etc.)


[1] http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/DOCS/documentation.html#mpsub
[2] http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tools_tips/tutorials/texttracks.html

Received on Thursday, 30 January 2003 10:21:50 UTC