How to position a subtitle in a .srt file ?

[momo1984]

I need to make a srt file but I don`t want to add the subtitle in the bottom center , but on the top center of the video file. How can I do that ?

Thank you

[Baldrick]

srt does not contain any such info. You adjust the position in the player/subtitle decoder.

If you want it in the subtitle file you must use another format like ssa/ass or image subtitles.

[MilesAhead]

It depends on the player. Some players support non-standard .srt tags or other addons. If your player supports idx/sub subtitle display the easiest may be to use AviAddXSubs to create idx/sub files. Not all players honor the border thickness settings but most will use the position info. It gives a nine position grid. Make sure to put the same info in both Configuration 1 Sub1 Tab and the idx/sub Tab .. resolution position etc..

I usually center mine 12 to 30 pixels from bottom center. To center at the top divide the horizontal res by 2 and experiment with the vertical position setting to get it where you want it. The screen shot shows idx/sub settings for an .avi with 624x352 res. Note that if your player then upconverts to HD then stuff like subtitle fonts are going to look much bigger.

[ale5000]

Try the {\anX} tags ( {\an1}, {\an2}, {\an3}, etc. ).
VLC, MPC-HC and DirectVobSub (VSFilter) support them in .srt subs.

[mkvonly]

srt does not contain any such info. .

Actually it does. Movie Little Fockers 2010 for instance (end credits) on left are credits and right side motion pictures.
So to get the subs showing on the right side I added {\pos(250,270)} before text. So the subs will look like this:
2041
01:31:56,887 --> 01:31:58,012
{\pos(250,270)}<i>Come on. Who needs</i>
<i>something like this?</i>

2042
01:31:58,096 --> 01:32:01,223
{\pos(250,270)}<i>Who's the target demo</i>
<i>for a drug like Sustengo?</i>
I play my movies with MPC (Media Player Classic)>hdmi>hifi>tv. No fancy expensive players thank you very much

[Baldrick]

And it is supported by ALL players that supports srt? If not then it's useless....

[guest]

You can use the program aegisub to do this very easily (just drag the subtitle after loading both subtitle file and video file). the exported subtitles will be .ass format though

[jimdagys]

You can use the following Chinese player:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/310387-DVD-software-player-raise-subtitles-to-top-o...eous-subtitles
While the movie is playing, you can drag the subtitles to the top of the screen. Works with DVD files with subtitles. Can't remember if it works with AVI/srt files, but I thinks it does. Can also display simultaneously 2 languages of subtitles, positioned anywhere on the screen, by simply dragging the subtitles while playing. This software might contain some adware/malware, so make sure your Windows restore is working properly, should you decide to uninstall the software.

[Haroon Khan]

srt does not contain any such info. .

Actually it does. Movie Little Fockers 2010 for instance (end credits) on left are credits and right side motion pictures.
So to get the subs showing on the right side I added {\pos(250,270)} before text. So the subs will look like this:
2041
01:31:56,887 --> 01:31:58,012
{\pos(250,270)}<i>Come on. Who needs</i>
<i>something like this?</i>

2042
01:31:58,096 --> 01:32:01,223
{\pos(250,270)}<i>Who's the target demo</i>
<i>for a drug like Sustengo?</i>
I play my movies with MPC (Media Player Classic)>hdmi>hifi>tv. No fancy expensive players thank you very much

it works on MPC. thanks. and can encode hard burn with xvid4psp as position set.
note that 250,270 in brackets is angel position for text, for example {\pos(350,12)} for right bottom corner.

[awgie]

srt does not contain any such info. .

Actually it does. Movie Little Fockers 2010 for instance (end credits) on left are credits and right side motion pictures.
So to get the subs showing on the right side I added {\pos(250,270)} before text. So the subs will look like this:
2041
01:31:56,887 --> 01:31:58,012
{\pos(250,270)}<i>Come on. Who needs</i>
<i>something like this?</i>

2042
01:31:58,096 --> 01:32:01,223
{\pos(250,270)}<i>Who's the target demo</i>
<i>for a drug like Sustengo?</i>
I play my movies with MPC (Media Player Classic)>hdmi>hifi>tv. No fancy expensive players thank you very much

{\pos(250,270)} is an .ASS override tag. It is not native to the .SRT format. The fact that it plays in MPC doesn't mean that it will play in any other software or hardware.

However, .SRT does provide for positioning. This is from the Doom9 Forum:

I haven't seen this format fully documented, so I got it from the source code to the SubRip program:

The format has no header, and no footer. Each subtitle has four parts:

Line 1 is a sequential count of subtitles, starting with 1.

Line 2 is the start timecode, followed by the string " --> ", followed by the end timecode. Timecodes are in the format HH:MM:SS,MIL (hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds). The end timecode can optionally be followed by display coordinates (example " X1:100 X2:600 Y1:050 Y2:100"). Without coordinates displayed, each line of the subtitle will be centered and the block will appear at the bottom of the screen.

Lines 3 onward are the text of the subtitle. New lines are indicated by new lines (i.e. there's no "\n" code). The only formatting accepted are the following:

<b>text</b>: put text in boldface
<i>text</i>: put text in italics
<u>text</u>: underline text
<font color="#00ff00">text</font>: apply green color formatting to the text (you can use the font tag only to change color)

Tags can be combined (and should be nested properly). Note that the SubRip code appears to prefer whole-line formatting (no underlining just one word in the middle of a line).

Finally, successive subtitles are separated from each other by blank lines.

Here is an example of an SRT file:

1
00:02:26,407 --> 00:02:31,356  X1:100 X2:100 Y1:100 Y2:100
<font color="#00ff00">Detta handlar om min storebrors</font> 
<b><i><u>kriminella beteende och foersvinnade.</u></i></b>

2
00:02:31,567 --> 00:02:37,164 
Vi talar inte laengre om Wade. Det aer 
som om han aldrig hade existerat.

[Ai Haibara]

Technically, awgie, you're responding to a four-year old thread. That said, I'm not sure about the positioning, but HTML formatting isn't native to the original version of SRT subtitles, either, which means hardware players are less likely to have support for it. HTML formatting was introduced for a variant of the SRT format.

[awgie]

Technically, awgie, you're responding to a four-year old thread. That said, I'm not sure about the positioning, but HTML formatting isn't native to the original version of SRT subtitles, either, which means hardware players are less likely to have support for it. HTML formatting was introduced for a variant of the SRT format.

I know it's an old thread. I did have to tick the box acknowledging that after all. I came across it whilst looking for something else entirely, and felt the information was useful enough to warrant adding it.

I don't know when the formatting tags were first introduced, but the Doom9 post I quoted was from 2004, and he got the info right from the SubRip source files, so I'm reasonably confident that it's a part of the actual SRT format, not just a variant. Maybe not the very first original SRT format, but genuine SRT nonetheless.

As for hardware players, well, I don't know how many of them fully support SRT anyway. My WDTV claims to support SRT and ASS subs, but all it does is display the textual information. It does absolutely nothing with any tag data... no italics, no colours, no positioning... nada.

[Ai Haibara]

I still get the impression that the two versions of SRT are separate (since SRT wasn't originally intended to have positioning or styles, AFAIK, and that seems to be precisely what the hardware player manufacturers implement for SRT).

ASS format has always been rather minimal in hardware players... I always wonder if they just take the SSA support code, patch it to 'recognize' an ASS subtitle stream/file... and that's it.

[awgie]

ASS format has always been rather minimal in hardware players... I always wonder if they just take the SSA support code, patch it to 'recognize' an ASS subtitle stream/file... and that's it.

TBH, I was surprised my player "supported" ASS files at all. It was as if the manufacturer said, "Well, we're against the idea, but if that's the only subtitles you have, I guess we'll at least show you what they say, but you're not going to enjoy it."

[Docoptik]

You can add the value {\an} before the text line
The "n" set the number as:

n = 1 --> bottom left
n = 2 --> bottom center
n = 3 --> bottom right


n = 4 --> Up left
n = 6 --> Up center
n = 7 --> Up right

n = 9 --> center left
n = 10 --> center center
n = 11 --> center right


For instance:

{\a4}Example Text --> Shows "Example Text" at Upper left

{\a9}Example Text --> Shows "Example Text" at center left

Works with MPC-HC

(Yes i know this is an old thread)

[awgie]

You can add the value {\an} before the text line
The "n" set the number as:

n = 1 --> bottom left
n = 2 --> bottom center
n = 3 --> bottom right


n = 4 --> Up left
n = 6 --> Up center
n = 7 --> Up right

n = 9 --> center left
n = 10 --> center center
n = 11 --> center right


For instance:

{\a4}Example Text --> Shows "Example Text" at Upper left

{\a9}Example Text --> Shows "Example Text" at center left

Works with MPC-HC

(Yes i know this is an old thread)

That's an ASS tag. Are you saying that it also works in SRT files?

[JVRaines]

The only markup accepted in the SubRip specification is bold, italic, underline, and text color. Everything else is an extension with unpredictable support.

[Docoptik]

let's say in the srt file there are these:

62
00:06:07,298 --> 00:07:29,421
{\a4}<b>Example Text 1</b>

69
00:08:45,713 --> 00:08:50,200
{\a9}<b>Example Text 2</b>

Look the pictures i uploaded....

[teodz1984]

only works on pcs with the proper software .old. hardware players will ignore these tags

[jagabo]

You can add the value {\an} before the text line
The "n" set the number as:

n = 1 --> bottom left
n = 2 --> bottom center
n = 3 --> bottom right


n = 4 --> Up left
n = 6 --> Up center
n = 7 --> Up right

n = 9 --> center left
n = 10 --> center center
n = 11 --> center right


For instance:

{\a4}Example Text --> Shows "Example Text" at Upper left

{\a9}Example Text --> Shows "Example Text" at center left

Works with MPC-HC

(Yes i know this is an old thread)

That's an ASS tag. Are you saying that it also works in SRT files?

It depends on the player. Some software players in Windows support them. Players built into hardware (TVs, Android TV devices, etc.) tend not to.

The only markup accepted in the SubRip specification is bold, italic, underline, and text color. Everything else is an extension with unpredictable support.

I agree with this. Don't count on anything beyond these. And don't even count on these!

[awgie]

let's say in the srt file there are these:

62
00:06:07,298 --> 00:07:29,421
{\a4}<b>Example Text 1</b>

69
00:08:45,713 --> 00:08:50,200
{\a9}<b>Example Text 2</b>

Look the pictures i uploaded....

So basically, MPC-HC supports a hybrid of SRT/ASS code. Which is great... if you use MPC-HC. I don't use that player personally, and I've never used any other players - software or hardware - that support the use of any positioning information in an SRT file, despite my earlier comment citing the Doom9 thread that mentions the "correct" format for positioning info in SRT. Windows media player, as near as I can tell, doesn't support external subtitles at all, and VLC simply ignores positioning information in SRT files.

So, like jagabo said, don't count on it.

[jagabo]

Windows media player, as near as I can tell, doesn't support external subtitles at all

As with all WMP extensions, you need to install a DirectShow filter for SRT subtitiles. Like DirectVobSub / VobSub. My recommendation: don't use the useless WMP.

[jagabo]

I made a test video and srt file with some of these SSA/ASS extensions. I'm not an expert on SSA/ASS so I don't know if I used all of them correctly. Especially the X,Y position commands the results of which vary from player to player. In general, most players respond to the basic bold/italic/underline/color commands. Some Windows players respond to the other commands, some not (non-Windows players did not).

[Docoptik]

As i said works with MPC-HC. I can't tell it more simpler.
It also works with VLC.
I mean watch the movie with your PC. Ok now??
If you want to use it fine, if you don't also fine.
I wrote it to have a person an option.

Jagabo your settings with the tags "position" works also in MPC. Not in VLC.

[sneaker]

MPC-HC and VLC also support ASS just fine in the first place so I would stick to that. You could also duplicate the track, e.g. have one simple (no positioning) SRT that works in most players and an ASS track for advanced players.