WebVTT

Overview

WebVTT: Web Video Text Tracks is a concerted effort to bring subtitles that run natively on the browser to the web. WebVTT functions by attaching an external WebVTT file to the <video> element via the <track> element like so:

<video src="video.webm">
  <track src="sample.vtt">
</video>

Where sample.vtt is an external WebVTT file marked up like so:

WEBVTT

00:01.000 --> 00:03.000
Hey!

00:03.000 --> 00:05.000
This is a sample!

If you feel like some self-punishment you can check out more about how it works by reading the WebVTT spec as well as the HTML5 Track Element spec.

Status

Currently you can view basic subtitles in Mozilla's Nightly builds. The basic WebVTT tags such as <b>, <u>, and <i> are working.

To try it out, enter about:config in the address bar and set the media.webvtt.enabled pref to true. Then visit a demo page like this one.

Get Involved

There are many ways you can help out Mozilla's implementation of WebVTT. You can help by:

• Working on the JS WebVTT parser.
• Working on the implementation of the HTML 5 Text Track spec.

Jump on #media on irc.mozilla.org to co-ordinate with contributors. Look for :rillian, :reyre, or :msaad.