SSA to MICRODVD
Or paste subtitle text
Options
Which frame rate the timings are counted in. On the format pages this is what MicroDVD needs, because it stores timing as frame numbers. On the frame rate pages it is the rate the file was timed against — the version the subtitles were made for — and the page's second box takes the rate of the video you are going to use them with. 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60 are the common ones. Getting it wrong shifts the whole timeline, and on the frame rate pages it shifts it by a ratio rather than by a fixed amount.
What this conversion changes
5 things are dropped or need a decision
- Styling
all styling (bold, italic, colour, outline, shadow)
- Positioning
on-screen positioning (every cue returns to the default position)
- Karaoke
karaoke timing (per-syllable highlighting)
- Frame rate
this format stores times as frame numbers — timings depend on the frame rate you supply
- Format-specific content
content the source format keeps outside its cues (non-cue blocks, header text, per-cue settings, commented-out events) — the target format has no place for it
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.
This page converts SSA to MICRODVD. Drop a file in — or paste the text — and you get the MICRODVD version back. The conversion runs entirely in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.
These two formats do not store the same things, and the difference is not cosmetic: styling, positioning, karaoke, frame rate and format-specific content have nowhere to go in MICRODVD. The list above comes from what the two formats can each express rather than from your file, so it is the same answer before you load anything.
One file is fine, and so is a whole season: the queue works through them in order and the results come down together as a single ZIP.
Examples
A typical SSA file, converted to MICRODVD
Input
[Script Info]
Title: Example SSA
ScriptType: v4.00
Collisions: Normal
[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Default,Arial,20,&H00FFFFFF,&H000000FF,&H00000000,&H00000000,0,0,1,2,2,2,10,10,10,0,1
[Events]
Format: Marked, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:01.00,0:00:04.00,Default,,0,0,0,,Hello there.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:05.00,0:00:08.00,Default,,0,0,0,,{\i1}Italic{\i0} line.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:09.00,0:00:12.00,Default,,0,0,0,,Two\Nlines
Output
{1}{1}25
{25}{100}Hello there.
{125}{200}Italic line.
{225}{300}Two|lines
Dropped in this output: styling, positioning, karaoke, frame rate and format-specific content. Everything else matches line for line.
The same conversion on an awkward input
Input
[Script Info]
Title: Dirty SSA
ScriptType: v4.00
[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Default,Arial,20,&H00FFFFFF,&H000000FF,&H00000000,&H00000000,0,0,1,2,2,2,10,10,10,0,1
[Events]
Format: Marked, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Comment: Marked=0,0:00:00.00,0:00:01.00,Default,,0,0,0,,not a subtitle
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:01.00,0:00:04.00,Default,,0,0,0,,{\b1}Bold{\b0} and {\u1}underlined{\u0}.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:05.00,0:00:08.00,Default,,0,0,0,,A soft\nbreak and a {\p1}mystery{\p0} code.Output
{1}{1}25
{25}{100}Bold and underlined.
{125}{200}A soft|break and a {\p1}mystery{\p0} code.
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 happens to bold, italic and colour from SSA to MICRODVD?
MICRODVD stores no styling of any kind, so all of it goes: an override tag such as `{\i1}` written into the event text, or a colour that came from the `[V4 Styles]` table — none of it has anywhere to land, and every line is written as plain text. The words themselves are untouched.
What happens to the on-screen position from SSA to MICRODVD?
MICRODVD cannot say where a subtitle is drawn, so the `\pos`, `\an` and `\move` codes are dropped on the way out of SSA, and every cue goes back to the default position the player chooses — the bottom of the frame, centred, for most of them.
What happens to karaoke timing from SSA to MICRODVD?
The timing goes; the words stay. Karaoke lives in the `\k`, `\kf` and `\ko` codes an SSA event carries, which mark when each syllable lights up, and MICRODVD has no way to record a moment inside a line — so the marks come off and the syllables arrive as ordinary MICRODVD text.
Which frame rate should I set for the SSA to MICRODVD conversion?
MICRODVD stores a subtitle as a pair of frame numbers rather than as clock times — `{103}{175}` — so the frame rate is what turns the SSA timings into what the file needs: at 25 frames per second, four seconds in is frame 100. Set it to the frame rate of the video these subtitles are for; the wrong value barely shows at the start and drifts further out of step the longer the video runs.
What happens to SSA's `[Script Info]` block and the rest of the script in MICRODVD?
Only the `Dialogue:` lines become subtitles. The `[Script Info]` block (title included — MICRODVD has nowhere to put one), the style table, any `Comment:` lines and whatever is embedded in `[Fonts]` or `[Graphics]` are all dropped. For an SSA file whose styling was written by hand, this is the loss that shows most.
What does the output look like when SSA becomes MICRODVD?
Like MICRODVD: no cue numbers: a pair of frame numbers in braces opens every line. Every SSA cue becomes one MICRODVD cue, in the same order, with the same text.
How does a two-line SSA cue come out in MICRODVD?
As one line with a vertical bar between the halves, which is how MicroDVD writes a line break. The pairing survives — the two SSA lines still belong to one subtitle in the MICRODVD output, and a player shows them together.
Do SSA cues keep their order in the MICRODVD output?
Yes, and they are sorted by start time on the way — earliest first, which is how every format here expects them and how players read them. If your SSA file listed its cues out of sequence, the MICRODVD output puts them back in order; that is a change to the file's structure rather than its content, and it is deliberate.
Can I convert the MICRODVD back to SSA?
Yes, and it has its own list: converting MICRODVD to SSA drops frame rate and precision. That list is different from the one above because the two formats keep different things.
Does the MICRODVD output keep the SSA file's encoding?
No — the output is UTF-8, with Unix line endings and no byte-order mark, whatever the SSA file used. A file that arrives in UTF-16, or in a Windows single-byte encoding, is decoded on the way in (the result panel says so when that happens); what comes out is always the same UTF-8 MICRODVD.