SubStation Alpha (or Sub Station Alpha), abbreviated SSA, is a subtitle file format created by Kotus that allows for more advanced subtitles than the conventional SRT and similar formats. This format can be rendered with VSFilter in conjunction with a DirectShow-aware video player (on Microsoft Windows), or MPlayer with the SSA/ASS library.
It is also the name of the popular, now discontinued, tool used to edit the subtitles. See below for more on SSA/ASS subtitle editors.
This subtitle format is frequently used in anime fansubs, either to overlay subtitles onto video while it is being encoded (hardsubbing), or to store subtitle data alongside video data in a Matroska (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.
Links
- SSA/ASS documentation
- SSA/ASS documentation (French)
- Downloadable complete and revised manual about SSA/ASS
- Downloadable complete and revised manual about SSA/ASS, gzipped PostScript file
- ASS Quick Reference
- How to play SSA files
- (Advanced) SubStation Alpha (.ssa/.ass file) words counter
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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