SubStation Alpha abbreviated SSA, is a subtitle

Subtitle (captioning)

Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added...

 file format

File format

A file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for...

 created by CS Low (also known as Kotus) that allows for more advanced subtitles than the conventional SRT

SubRip

SubRip is a software program for Windows which "rips" subtitles and their timings from video. It is free software, released under the GNU GPL...

 and similar formats. This format can be rendered with VSFilter

VSFilter

DirectVobSub formerly known as VSFilter is a software add-on for Microsoft Windows that is able to read external subtitle files and superimposes them on a playing video file....

 in conjunction with a DirectShow

DirectShow

DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...

-aware video player

Video player (software)

A video player is a kind of media player for playing back digital video data from media such as optical discs , as well as from files of appropriate formats such as MPEG, AVI, RealVideo, and QuickTime....

 (on Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

), or MPlayer

MPlayer

MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...

 with the SSA/ASS library. It is also the name of the popular, now discontinued tool used to edit subtitles.

This subtitle format is frequently used in anime fansub

Fansub

A fansub is a version of a foreign film or foreign television program which has been translated by fans and subtitled into a language other than that of the original.-History:...

s, either to overlay subtitles onto video while it is being encoded (hardsubbing), or to store subtitle data alongside video data in a Matroska

Matroska

The Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...

 (MKV) container (softsubbing). Hardsubbing is irreversible but does not require VSFilter or other special resources for playback. Softsubbing allows the end user to choose whether subtitles will be displayed, and makes it possible to include multiple subtitle streams in the same video file.

The current version of SSA is v4.00.

There are many freeware and open source subtitling applications that support the SSA format.

Principal sections in an SSA subtitle

A basic SSA subtitle:

 [Script Info]

 ; This is a Sub Station Alpha v4 script.

 ; For Sub Station Alpha info and downloads,

 ; go to http://www.eswat.demon.co.uk/

 Title: Neon Genesis Evangelion - Episode 26 (neutral Spanish)

 Original Script: RoRo

 Script Updated By: version 2.8.01

 ScriptType: v4.00

 Collisions: Normal

 PlayResY: 600

 PlayDepth: 0

 Timer: 100,0000

  

 [V4 Styles]

 Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow,

    Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding

 Style: DefaultVCD, Arial,28,11861244,11861244,11861244,-2147483640,-1,0,1,1,2,2,30,30,30,0,0

  

 [Events]

 Format: Marked, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text

 Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:01.18,0:00:06.85,DefaultVCD, NTP,0000,0000,0000,,{\pos(400,570)}Like an angel with pity on nobody

Explanation

• Script Info: general information about the script:
  • Title
  • Original Script
  • Script Updated By
  • Script Type (useful for compatibility)
  • Collisions (determines the stacking direction of the subtitles when two or more are present with no specific position: if Normal, subtitles are stacked from down to up; if Reverse, they're stacked from up to down, and can leave spaces under them)
  • PlayResX & PlayResY (useful for graphics and subtitle positioning. If only one present, the other is calculated with real video proportions)
  • PlayDepth (determines number of colors)
  • Timer (all timing is multiplied by this percentage, always written with decimal point and four decimal signs. If smaller than 100.0000, subtitles appear faster and sooner than specified. If greater, slower and later)
• V4 Styles: a "Format:" line, that specifies the meaning of the "Style:" line Fields, and one or multiple "Style" lines, specifying the color, position, margins, the "shape" of a normal subtitle when adjusted to a determinated style (see "Events" section below). All boolean options are written as 0 or 1 (0=false, 1=true). Strange features are:
  • PrimaryColour. Subtitle filling color
  • SecondaryColour. If subtitle has karaoke commands, will appear in this color, changing to PrimaryColour.
  • TertiaryColour (OutlineColour in ASS). Border color
  • BackColour. Shadow color
  • MarginL, MarginR. Minimum margins from subtitles to video limits.
  • MarginV. Minimum margin from subtitles to a video limit, that changes with alignment: if the video limit is the top, distances are from video top; if bottom, distances are from video bottom; if centered, this is unused. In all margin parameters, line is normally cut in \n & \N commands and in spaces, when necessary. An optional parameter in Script Info (only available in ASS), WrapStyle, can change this.
  • Outline. Subtitle can be defined with a border, a rectangle or nothing.
  • Shadow. Distance from shadow to subtitle.
  • AlphaLevel. Transparency (0 is null, 255 is total)
  • Encoding. Useful for writing other alphabet characters in ASCII. With Latin characters, this is set to zero. With Japanese characters, it can be set to 128 (ex: ‹ó displays Sora kanji). With Hebrew characters, it can be set to 177.
• Events: the section with the subtitles. Timing and text are here, and special effects and style modifications can also be placed, with commands with the same syntax: {\letters invoking command(parameters separated by comma)}, like in {\move(80,80,200,200,150,300)}. Commands with only a single parameter do not need parentheses (ex. {\kf89}). Strange parameters:
  • Marked. Unused.
  • Effect. There are three available effects for text appearing, all of them substitutable for commands and others.

Two exceptions:

• Inside braces can be more than one command. Ex. {\bord8\be1}
• \N and \n commands don't use braces.

Advanced SubStation Alpha

Advanced SubStation Alpha (ASS) is a script for more advanced subtitles than SSA. It is technically SSA v4+. It is able to produce anything from simple texts to manual graphic editing used in karaoke. There are few programs designed to create these scripts.
The main feature of ASS is it has more specifications than normal SSA, like in styles programming.
For example, the above script changed into ASS:

 [Script Info]

 ; Script generated by Aegisub

 ; http://www.aegisub.net

 Title: Neon Genesis Evangelion - Episode 26 (neutral Spanish)

 Original Script: RoRo

 Script Updated By: version 2.8.01

 ScriptType: v4.00+

 Collisions: Normal

 PlayResY: 600

 PlayDepth: 0

 Timer: 100,0000

 Video Aspect Ratio: 0

 Video Zoom: 6

 Video Position: 0

  

 [V4+ Styles]

 Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, OutlineColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, Underline, StrikeOut, ScaleX, ScaleY, Spacing, Angle, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Encoding

 Style: DefaultVCD, Arial,28,&H00B4FCFC,&H00B4FCFC,&H00000008,&H80000008,-1,0,0,0,100,100,0.00,0.00,1,1.00,2.00,2,30,30,30,0

  

 [Events]

 Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text

 Dialogue: 0,0:00:01.18,0:00:06.85,DefaultVCD, NTP,0000,0000,0000,,{\pos(400,570)}Like an Angel with pity on nobody\NThe second line in subtitle

Authoring software

Title	Platform	License	Notes
Aegisub Aegisub Aegisub is a free open-source cross-platform subtitle editing program. It is extensively used in fansubbing, the practice of creating or translating unofficial, noncommercial subtitles for visual media by fans...	Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X		The official subtitle editor Subtitle editor A Subtitle editor is a type of software used to create and edit subtitles to be superimposed over, and synchronized with, video. Such editors usually provide video preview, easy entering/editing of text, start, and end times, and control over text formatting and positioning... , focused mostly on typesetting.
Jubler	Java
VisualSubSync	Microsoft Windows
subtitleeditor	GNU/Linux
Sabbu Sabbu Sabbu is a program used to "time" subtitles. Timing means setting start and end times for a piece of text that will appear in a video. For example, when a video has been translated into a different language the result is just text. Before the translation can be shown in a video, it must be timed so...	Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD		Focused mostly on timing. No longer developed.
Sub Station Alpha tool	Windows		Outdated and no longer developed, but still a favorite of some
Subtitle Workshop	Windows		It is not advised because it is not a fully dedicated SSA/ASS editor, because it doesn't follow the strict rules about SSA subtitles, and it erases any style put in with another program.
Subtitle Processor	Windows		Unicode is supported from version 7.7, UTF-8 is preferred, other encodings are internally converted to UTF-8.
Miyu
Gaupol	Linux and Windows		Has partial support for Sub Station Alpha and Advanced Sub Station Alpha subtitles.

Players and renderers

Title	Description
Avidemux Avidemux Avidemux is a free and open-source video editing program designed for video editing and video processing. It is written in C++, and uses either the GTK+ or Qt.- Features :...	Open-source Open-source software Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...  video editing and processing software product
Combined Community Codec Pack Combined Community Codec Pack The Combined Community Codec Pack, more commonly referred to as the CCCP, is a collected archive of codecs packed for Microsoft Windows, designed originally for the playback of anime fansubs. The CCCP is developed and maintained by members of various fansubbing groups...	Open-source set of DirectShow DirectShow DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...  codecs that allows Window Media Player to display SSA subtitles
DivX DivX DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the...	The proprietary DivX Plus software supports this subtitle format
Media Player Classic Home Cinema	Open-source self-contained media player for Windows
MPlayer MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...	Open-source media player that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, *BSD, Solaris, BeOS, Syllable, AmigaOS AmigaOS AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...  and MorphOS MorphOS MorphOS is an Amiga-compatible computer operating system. It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the...
PS3 Media Server PS3 Media Server PS3 Media Server is a DLNA compliant UPnP Media Server. Originally written to support the PlayStation 3, it has been expanded to support a range of other media renderers, including Xbox 360 and various Samsung and Sony televisions. Written in Java, it streams or transcodes many different media...	Media server that works with Playstation 3 PlayStation 3 The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...  systems
Totem Totem A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...	GNOME's default media player that can render SSA subtitles via gstreamer GStreamer GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.GStreamer allows a programmer to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing...
VideoPad Videopad VideoPad is a video editing software developed by NCH Software for the home and professional market. The software is complemented by the virtual dub plug-ins that work with the software...	Video editing program from NCH Software NCH Software NCH Software is a software development company founded in 1993 in Canberra, Australia. The Denver office was started in April 2008 due to the large U.S. customer base...  that support .ssa subtitles
VirtualDub VirtualDub VirtualDub is a video capture and video processing utility for Microsoft Windows written by Avery Lee.It is designed to process linear video streams, including filtering and recompression...  with the subtitler filter	Open-source video capture/processing utility for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms
VLC media player VLC media player VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...	Open-source media player for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant... , OpenBSD OpenBSD OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995... , Solaris, BeOS BeOS BeOS is an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...  and Syllable OS
XBMC	Open-source cross-platform Cross-platform In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms... Media Center program