The DVB steering board has approved a new specification for subtitling for broadcast TV and which will be based on the W3C Timed Text Markup Language and will run alongside the current bitmap-based technology which has been used for around 20 years. DVB said that the technology is being adopted by standards groups including ARIB, ATSC, EBU, SMPTE, ISO/MPEG and also in the HbbTV specification.
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.”
