SSA Subtitles (SubStation Alpha)
A SubStation Alpha (.ssa) subtitle — the predecessor of ASS — with a V4 styles section and timed Dialogue events, carrying the same captions, for testing SSA parsers and SSA-to-ASS upgrades.
[Script Info]
Title: Novus Examples sample captions
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,48,16777215,255,0,0,0,0,1,2,1,2,10,10,20,0,1
[Events]
Format: Marked, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:00.00,0:00:02.50,Default,,0,0,0,,Welcome to Novus Examples.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:02.50,0:00:05.00,Default,,0,0,0,,These are free sample subtitle files.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:05.00,0:00:08.00,Default,,0,0,0,,Use them to test parsers, players, and converters.
Specifications
- Format
- SubStation Alpha (v4.00)
- Cues
- 3
- Timing
- H:MM:SS.mm
- Captions
- same as the SRT/VTT twins
- Sections
- Script Info, V4 Styles, Events
What is a .ssa file?
SSA (SubStation Alpha, .ssa) is the predecessor of ASS — a styled subtitle format with a Script Info header, a styles section, and timed Dialogue events. It supports fonts, colours, and positioning, and remains widely readable even though ASS has largely replaced it.
How to use this file
Use an example .ssa file to test subtitle parsers, SSA-to-ASS upgrades, and conversion to SRT or VTT, or to exercise styled-subtitle handling.
How to use this file for testing
“SSA Subtitles (SubStation Alpha)” is a deterministic Novus Examples fixture for Subtitle parsing, Conversion testing, Editor testing. The same captions written out across SubRip, WebVTT, ASS/SSA, SBV, TTML and a synced LRC lyric file, with known timings — for exercising subtitle parsers, format converters and burn-in tools against every serialisation.
Documented properties for this file: 3 cues · SubStation Alpha (v4.00). Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.
Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such — expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.
Document fixtures list their internal structure (pages, fields, tracked changes, embedded objects) in the spec table. Test extractors, converters, and OCR against that known structure, and compare searchable↔scanned or format-twin companions when present.
Parse the cues and check timings against the documented count; the same captions ship across subtitle formats so you can diff a converter against a known target.
Code examples
<video controls src="clip.mp4">
<track kind="captions" srclang="en" label="English" src="captions.ssa" default>
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Generated by generation/subtitles_extra.py. Free for any use, no attribution required — license.