libass VS JavascriptSubtitlesOctopus

TIL there's a library called 'libass'

Not Rust but libass :D

Dunno ... I'm kinda glad these guys didn't call their SSA/ASS implementation "open"

I see libass gets talked about on Reddit often enough.

libass is similar. For example, in the header:

libass

Using softsub allows you to reduce server usage as you only needs to deploy one video and multiple subtitles, but implementing it is hard: you can use this portable renderer, but just because it compiles to multiple platforms it does mean it run well on those, it might crash in low-end devices (there is even a Crunchyroll episode that loads multiple fonts at the same time, place a lot of texts moving and crash my phone).

Finally. Now just hoping for a way to use SubtitlesOctopus on the web version of Plex.

This is because Crunchyroll actually uses ASS, a subtitle format with advanced formatting options, with a JavaScript library to show the subtitles on the video.

These two projects aim to do the same thing in two different ways. SABRE.js is less mature and is still implementing some features, but has better performance of the two.

As Crunchyroll has been using .ass subs since their inception, they have a lot more leeway for effects ever since they swapped to an HTML5 player and using this Javascript libass implementation. Since then, the most utilization I've seen on English CR subs would be move effects on typesetting signs. Seems like other languages on CR have been experimenting/putting in more effort than their English counterparts (though who knows if they're getting paid the same 🤷‍♀️).