Add your ASS file
Drop one or more .ass files onto the converter above, or browse for them. They load into browser memory only — nothing is uploaded, so there is no size-based pricing and no server queue.
ASS to SAMI
Converting a .ass file to .sami extracts the document's content from its office package into a portable form. Free, private, and validated — the file never leaves your browser.
Private for supported formats — processed in your browser
Runs on your deviceConvert supported files
Drop ASS files here
Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.
Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.About converting Advanced SubStation Alpha subtitles to SAMI captions
Converting a .ass file to .sami extracts the document's content from its office package into a portable form. An .ass file is an Advanced SubStation Alpha subtitle script: an INI-like document whose [Events] section holds Dialogue lines with start and end times, a named style, and text that may carry inline override tags. It is the format fansub and anime communities standardised on because it can position, colour, and animate captions rather than only time them.
A .sami file is the same Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange caption document as .smi, written with the long form of the extension. The contents are identical — <SYNC Start=…> elements inside an HTML-like SAMI document — and the long extension is chosen mainly to avoid colliding with SMIL files, which also claim .smi. For this route the practical draw is unambiguous about which format the file actually is and identical tooling support to .smi wherever SAMI is recognised — balanced against some players recognise only .smi and must be given a renamed copy, which is worth knowing before you commit a large batch.
Why convert ASS to SAMI?
The practical trigger for this conversion is usually a mismatch: with .ass, styling and positioning are lost the moment the file is converted to SubRip, WebVTT, or a lyric format. Switching to .sami buys you unambiguous about which format the file actually is, which is why it is the better fit for storing SAMI captions where .smi would collide with SMIL files. Because the conversion runs locally, trying it costs nothing but a few seconds of compute on your own machine.
ASS vs SAMI at a glance
| Aspect | Advanced SubStation Alpha subtitles (.ass) | SAMI captions (.sami) |
|---|---|---|
| Format type | Text-based — characters and structure, so there is no visual quality loss | Text-based — characters and structure, so there is no visual quality loss |
| How it stores data | the script is divided into [Script Info], [V4+ Styles], and [Events] sections, each with its own Format line naming the fields that follow | byte for byte the same format as .smi: <SAMI>, <HEAD> with a <STYLE> block, and <BODY> with SYNC elements |
| Strongest at | styled and positioned captions muxed into Matroska releases | storing SAMI captions where .smi would collide with SMIL files |
| Weak spot | styling and positioning are lost the moment the file is converted to SubRip, WebVTT, or a lyric format | some players recognise only .smi and must be given a renamed copy |
| Metadata | script metadata and the style table describe presentation rather than the cues themselves; conversion keeps timing and text and reports styling as lost, because no caption target can carry it | as with .smi, the style block and language classes describe presentation; only cue timing and text are carried into other formats |
Pick SAMI as the output
Select .sami in the output menu next to each file. The menu only offers targets this engine can genuinely produce, so if SAMI is selectable, the route is real and validated.
Convert on your device
Press Convert. The package is unzipped in memory and its XML content parsed locally; nothing is uploaded.
Verify and download
Each result is signature-checked before the download unlocks, so a failed encode can never masquerade as a valid SAMI file. Outputs keep the original filename with the .sami extension.
ASS to SAMI questions, answered
Will converting ASS to SAMI lose quality?
There is no visual quality to lose — ass is text-oriented and sami is text-oriented, so the question is structural fidelity. Text, ordering, and basic structure are preserved; complex layout, embedded objects, and styling beyond the target's model are simplified.
Is it private to convert ASS files here?
Yes — the .ass file is processed inside your browser tab and never uploaded. The package is unzipped in memory and its XML content parsed locally; nothing is uploaded. Close the tab and the file is gone from memory.
Where will the SAMI file work?
Players that read SAMI generally accept .sami as well, though a few match on .smi alone. Novus Convert treats the two identically, running the same hardened SAMI parser — no document types, no external entities, script and style content stripped — and exports any of the twelve timed-text targets.
Will the SAMI file be bigger or smaller than my ASS?
It depends on the content: byte for byte the same format as .smi: <SAMI>, <HEAD> with a <STYLE> block, and <BODY> with SYNC elements. Convert one representative file first and compare before batch-processing a large set.
What happens to the metadata in my ASS file?
In .ass, script metadata and the style table describe presentation rather than the cues themselves; conversion keeps timing and text and reports styling as lost, because no caption target can carry it. Re-encoding through the browser pipeline does not carry embedded metadata into the output, which doubles as a privacy scrub — check the exported file if you specifically need tags preserved.
Can I convert SAMI back to ASS?
Yes — the reverse route exists as a separate tool. Bear in mind that round-tripping .ass → .sami → .ass is not a perfect undo when any lossy step is involved; keep your original if fidelity matters.