EBU-TT stands for EBU Timed Text. It is an XML-based subtitling format intended as a follow-up to the currently widely used EBU STL format ( EBU Tech 3264). In 2012, Version 1.0 of EBU-TT was published (EBU Tech 3350) . This specification defines an easy-to-use XML structure for the interchange and archiving of subtitles. It builds on the W3C Timed text Markup Langauge (TTML) 1.0 .

To help developers get started, an XML Schema implementation of EBU-TT part 1 is available too. Please note that the XML Schema is informative and cannot guarantee 100% conformance to the spec, so EBU Tech 3350 stays the normative reference. The EBU has also developed a recommendation on the transport of subtitles inside and outside MXF files ( EBU R 133).

 
EBU-TT part 1 focuses on the basic structure of EBU Timed Text. It is part of a series of documents being created by the EBU Subtitling Group (MIM-XMLSubs). If you are interested in joining this work, see the XMLSubs Group page .Current work focusses on the creation of EBU-TT part 2, a guide on how to map EBU STL files to EBU-TT. Work on Live Subtitling ("part 3") has also started.

If you have any further questions on EBU-TT or related topics, then don't hesitate to send us an e-mail via: subtitling@ebu.ch