YouTube actually supports it through a feature called WebVTT [0], though it is rarely used, an example of it is this video [1] where it is used for placement and lighting up text for karaoke.

The actual code for it is looks like this:

  00:03:31.485 --> 00:03:31.719 align:start position:0% line:0%
  <c.color96D2D3>Hey! nanika ga okoru spe cial </c><c.colorFEFEFE>night</c>
  
  00:03:31.485 --> 00:03:31.719 align:start position:0% line:0%
  <c.color96D2D3>Hey! nanika ga okoru spe cial </c><c.colorFEFEFE>night</c>
  
  00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:32.486 align:start position:0% line:0%
  <c.color96D2D3>Hey! nanika ga okoru special  night</c>
  
  00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:32.486 align:start position:0% line:0%
  <c.color96D2D3>Hey! nanika ga okoru special  night</c>

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebVTT [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AufydOsiD6M

Just a heads up for anyone who want to see the karaoke, set the CC language to Japanese.

Here's another good example: https://youtu.be/ddWJatRxfz8

And again, set language to Japanese.

Actually most modern systems support image embedding, animations, styling, and positioning with TTML. It’s an official spec, supported by every television, Netflix, Chromecast, etc.

It’s also a format no fansubber ever heard of.

TTML is also supported by pretty much every piece of m pptultimedia equipment out there including chromecast , which is the exact opposite of ASS which is supported by basically nothing.

The fansubbing community is so annoying with its insistence on terrible formats. The community has somehow standardized on 10bit hevc with ASS subtitles. That makes releases so hard to play.

And while there are ways to implement ASS in the browser, those require compiling the one single ASS library that actually works (because it’s an implementation-defined format, ofc) to WASM and running that in the browser. With the expected performance issues.

Now try running that on a Chromecast >_>

The fansubbing community is just so stuck in weird formats which provide no benefit except a virtual moat preventing newcomers.

Can you watch Crunchyroll on a Chromecast? They at least use ASS in the browser.

Sure, but only the english subtitle, and you can’t disable it. For Chromecast, you have to use the burned-in subtitles.

Which is expected, considering the hardware just isn’t powerful enough for ASS subtitles (to get good performance, even on a desktop you’ll want a recent CPU and at least 1-2GB of RAM): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromecast#Model_comparison

You can definitely still do some interesting things with YouTube subtitles;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cqqGOvOGfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvO8kcWFFT0