.SRT

Introduction

SRT is the most widely supported subtitle format. It is named after SubRip, a Windows program that read the subtitles from DVD video and saved them as text. The format is so simple that almost every video player, editor and streaming service can read it.

An SRT file is plain text. Newer files are usually UTF-8, but older files are often saved in a regional code page, which is why accented letters sometimes show wrongly. The format has no formal standard, and it supports only simple styling.

Structure

The file is a list of cues separated by blank lines. Each cue has three parts: a counter that numbers the cues from 1, a line with the start and end times, and one or more lines of text. Times are written hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds, with a comma before the milliseconds, and the two times are separated by -->.

Many players accept a few HTML-like tags in the text: <i>, <b>, <u> and <font color="…">.

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,500
Where are we going?

2
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:06,250
<i>Somewhere we have never been.</i>

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