MicroDVD is a

subtitle Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informati ...

file format A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file formats ...

for digital video. Its name is derived from the MicroDVD Player, a media player application designed to play DVD videos along with subtitles, originally developed by Tiamat Software. The application was first released in 2000 but development ended in 2001. Media players that support the format are able to interpret MicroDVD subtitles and mix their contents with their corresponding video files.

Format

Specification

MicroDVD subtitle files have the

filename extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...

. These files may come along with a video file and/or created/modified by the user. Media player applications that support external subtitle files are usually responsible for locating correct files. MicroDVD subtitle files consist of multiple lines, each defining a portion of the subtitle text that must be displayed between certain given video

frame A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

s. The line syntax is: Text For example, if "Hello!" is to be displayed during the first 25 frames of a digital video, clip or movie, the corresponding file must contain the line: Hello! The duration of the text being displayed depends on the

frame rate Frame rate (expressed in or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems. Frame rate may also be ca ...

of the corresponding video file. For example, if the frame rate of the corresponding video file is 25 frames per seconds and the subtitle file in last example is accompanied with, "Hello!" is displayed for one second. The software the MicroDVD Player expects the subtitle file to begin with the tag

EGIN Egin may refer to: * ''Egin'' (newspaper), a defunct bilingual Basque-Spanish newspaper * Eğin, the name for the town of Kemaliye, Turkey, until about 1923 * Egin, Idaho, United States, an unincorporated community * Yuri Egin, an anime-only cha ...

and end with the tag ND

Control Codes

The font size cannot be configured in .sub files, only in player, but the font style of the subtitle displayed may be changed using control codes. The available control codes and their purposeMicroDVD Player Documentation are given: The control code y defines font style. Hello! "Hello!" is displayed in italic. Hello! "Hello!" is displayed in bold. Hello! "Hello!" is underlined. Hello! "Hello!" is stroked. The control code f defines font name. Hello! "Hello!" is displayed using the defined font, with the string "fontname" determining the desired font. For example: Hello! "Hello!" is displayed in the

Arial Arial (also called Arial MT) is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software appli ...

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...

. The control code s defines font size. Hello! "Hello!" is displayed at the defined font size, with the string "size" determining the desired size as an integer number. For example: Hello! "Hello!" is displayed at the font size of 10. The control code c defines font color. Hello! "Hello!" is displayed in a defined color. The color format is: $BBGGRR (8 bits blue, 8 bits green and 8 bits red). For example: Hello! "Hello!" is displayed in full intensity red. Note that this is not standard

RGB color model The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additiv ...

, instead the color order is reversed. The control code P defines subtitle position relative to video. Hello! "Hello!" is displayed at the coordinates (X,Y). Each line in the subtitle normally displays as a single line. However, the pipe character may be used to break a single line into multiple lines. For example: Hello! How are you? The above code displays as follows: Hello! How are you? On the other hand, Hello!, How are you? The above code displays as follows: Hello! How are you? In this case, it is possible to define display values of each line or the whole subtitle line . If the control code is in upper case, it affects the whole subtitle line. If the control code is in lower case, it affects only the line it is contained in. For example: Hello!, How are you? The above code will display as two lines of italic text. But, Hello!, How are you? The above code will display as two lines; the first line in italic, and the second line in bold. Note that if no more code is used after a pipe character, the following lines will retain the same formatting. Note that the subtitle positioning code P must be logically always used in uppercase. It is also possible to use multiple codes at once. Here is an example: Hello! "Hello!" will be displayed underlined and in bold, in red and in the DeJaVuSans font at 12 points. The default display values for a complete subtitle file may be defined using , which will override particular line formattings. For example, the following code may be used to display all subtitle line using DeJaVuSans at 10 points and in blue: This line of code may be placed anywhere in the subtitle file. Also note that in this case, all control codes are in uppercase. There is also a code H to define a particular

character set Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values that ...

to use: Defines that the Greek character set should be used. This code can be used only in the line.

References

{{reflist Subtitle file formats

Format

Specification

Control Codes

See also

References