videosubtitleclosed-captions

What is this subtitle format called?

I found a subtitle that goes like this:

<transcript>
<text start="2.906" dur="3">TEXT 1</text>
<text start="7.907" dur="3.914">TEXT 2</text>
......

What is that format called?

Solution

  • That is Youtube's "Timed Text" transcript format. Based on W3C TTML (see bottom example).

    Your shown sample looks like an older version/layout format (eg: videos from 2011 have that similar layout, but 2017 transcripts look slightly different, since now using timedtext format="3").

    When you enable CC option on a video that (markup) transcript text is loaded. You can see this by checking "Network" requests in your browser's Developer Tools.

    Open timedtext>key= link in new tab to view content of transcript text.

    (see below image) :

    Edit :
    PS: If you want it displayed similar to your posted style, in the timedtext>key= link just edit the ending of the URL from &fmt=srv3 to become &fmt=srv1.