The Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) steering board has approved a new specification for DVB TTML subtitling systems.
The specification enables the delivery of next generation subtitles in transport streams for broadcast television services, based on W3C Timed Text Markup Language (TTML). The new specification complements the bitmap based subtitle solutions, which have been in use for over 20 years.
The new TTML delivery specification will allow service providers to transition over time to a common TTML subtitle format for both broadcast and internet delivered services.
DVB Technical Module chair Kevin Murray said “The approval of the transport stream carriage of the TTML specification adds a very important component to the DVB specifications, most notably providing support for UHD subtitles. This also provides a common subtitling mechanism between transport stream and DASH delivered content and, being a textual based format, opens up a range of new possibilities for enhancing accessibility of services.”
Commenting on the approval by the Steering Board, DVB chairman, Peter MacAvock added “Access Services facilitated by DVB’s new specification are a cornerstone of media services. DVB’s existing bitmapped subtitling specification now has a complement that facilitates subtitling across different platforms and helps DVB addressing the ever increasing demand for accessible content across all platforms.”
