SRT to SBV
Or paste subtitle text
What this conversion changes
Nothing is lost in this direction — every feature of the source format has somewhere to go in the target format.
This list comes from the capability matrix for these two formats, not from the particular file you loaded. A specific file may lose more if it uses features the format allows but the matrix does not model.
SBV is the subtitle format YouTube used for its own caption files, and this page rewrites an SRT file as one. The shape is simple: a start time, a comma, an end time, then the text, with a blank line between cues. There are no cue numbers at all, so the numbers from your SRT file are dropped and everything else is carried across.
The timestamps are rewritten in SBV notation — 0:00:01.000, one digit for the hour and a dot before the milliseconds — and they name the same moments as the 00:00:01,000 they came from. Inline tags come through untouched, and a cue that held two lines still holds two lines, because SBV separates cues with a blank line rather than with a number.
Convert one file or a whole set; the queue runs in order, can be stopped, and returns a single ZIP. Nothing is uploaded.
Examples
A typical SRT file, converted to SBV
Input
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,500
Hello there.
2
00:00:03,500 --> 00:00:06,000
<i>Whispering</i> now.
And a second line.
3
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,250
<b>Bold</b> statement.
Output
0:00:01.000,0:00:03.500
Hello there.
0:00:03.500,0:00:06.000
<i>Whispering</i> now.
And a second line.
0:00:06.000,0:00:09.250
<b>Bold</b> statement.
Nothing is dropped here: compare the two sides line for line.
The same conversion on an awkward input
Input
1
0:00:01,00 --> 0:00:03,500
<B>Bold</B> and <I>italic</I>.
2
00:00:03,500 --> 00:00:06,000
3
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:09,000
Last one.
Output
0:00:01.000,0:00:03.500
<b>Bold</b> and <i>italic</i>.
0:00:03.500,0:00:06.000
0:00:08.000,0:00:09.000
Last one.
This is the kind of damage real files have — mixed line endings, stray whitespace, fields left empty. Compare it with the tidy example above to see what the parser forgives.
Frequently asked questions
What is SBV and why would I need it?
It is the caption format YouTube wrote for its own uploads: two timestamps separated by a comma, then the text, then a blank line. Tools and workflows built around that pipeline expect it, so converting is often easier than persuading them to accept SRT.
What happened to the cue numbers?
SBV has nowhere to put them, so they are dropped. Nothing else changes — the same start time, the same end time, the same words — and the output stays readable, because cues are told apart by the blank line between them.
Why do the timestamps look different from my SRT file?
SBV writes the hour as a single digit and uses a dot before the milliseconds, where SRT pads the hour to two digits and uses a comma. Both name the same moment to the millisecond, so nothing drifts.
Are my tags and line breaks kept?
Yes. Inline tags are passed through unchanged, and a cue with two lines stays a cue with two lines — line breaks inside a cue are unambiguous in SBV because cues are separated by blank lines, not by numbers.
Which should I give YouTube, SBV or SRT?
Both are accepted for caption uploads and both work. SBV is the older path; SRT is the more widely supported format everywhere else, so it is the safer one to keep as your master file.