WebVTT

File Format
Name	WebVTT
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Video Subtitle formats WebVTT
MIME Type(s)	text/vtt
Released	2014

WebVTT is a format for subtitles (e.g., to accompany video) which has been proposed as a W3C draft in 2014. It has some similarities to the SubRip text file format, but uses a different syntax. As it is only a draft as of this writing, it may still be subject to change.

Format

Files consist of a series of subtitles and/or comments, separated by blank lines. Any of the standard line-termination sequences (CR, LF, CR+LF) are allowed to mark the end of a line. A "metadata header" may precede the first subtitle or comment. A comment consists of a segment beginning with the word "NOTE". A subtitle consists of a line giving the timing of the subtitle (HH:MM:SS.XXXX --> HH:MM:SS.XXXX or MM:SS.XXXX --> MM.SS.XXXX (possibly followed by some positioning elements) followed by one or more lines of subtitles. Some embedded tags can be used within the subtitles, for instance to identify which character is speaking (<v Jane>)

Identification

WebVTT files always begin with the characters WEBVTT<code>, possibly preceded by a Byte Order Mark. The character encoding is UTF-8.

Links

• WebVTT draft (W3C)