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Document format

ITT converter

An .itt file is an iTunes Timed Text document: a constrained TTML profile that Apple defined for subtitle delivery to the iTunes Store and Apple TV. Its defining trait is timing — cues are addressed in SMPTE timecode (HH:MM:SS:FF) against a frame rate declared in the document header.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop ITT 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.

Where ITT comes from

Apple published the iTunes Timed Text specification in the early 2010s as the required subtitle deliverable for its video store, choosing a narrow TTML subset so that submissions would validate consistently. Final Cut Pro gained native .itt export, which carried the format well beyond Apple's own ingest and into general post-production use.

How ITT works

  • Timing is frame-accurate: begin and end are HH:MM:SS:FF timecodes resolved against ttp:frameRate, optionally scaled by ttp:frameRateMultiplier for drop-frame rates such as 23.976.
  • The profile permits a restricted styling vocabulary — italic, bold, underline, and a small set of positions — and rejects the rest of TTML.
  • Documents declare ttp:timeBase="media" and, for NTSC-derived rates, ttp:dropMode.
  • Everything else is standard TTML: a <tt> root with <body>, <div>, and <p> cues.

When to use ITT

  • Delivering subtitles to Apple's ingest specifications
  • Exchanging frame-accurate subtitles with a Final Cut Pro timeline
  • Converting a frame-based post-production deliverable into millisecond caption formats
  • Archiving subtitles alongside an edit whose frame rate matters

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Frame-accurate timing that lines up exactly with an edit timeline
  • A narrow, validatable profile with far fewer interoperability surprises than full TTML
  • First-class export from Final Cut Pro

Limitations

  • Frame timecodes are meaningless without the declared frame rate, so a mis-set header shifts every cue
  • The restricted styling vocabulary rejects most of what TTML can express
  • No browser or general-purpose player reads it

Compatibility

Final Cut Pro, Compressor, and Apple's delivery pipelines read and write .itt, and Subtitle Edit imports it. Browsers and consumer players do not. Novus Convert resolves the SMPTE timecodes against the document's own ttp:frameRate and ttp:frameRateMultiplier — falling back to 30 fps only when neither is declared — and exports to any of the twelve timed-text targets.

The frame-rate parameters are read because timing depends on them; styling attributes are dropped, since millisecond caption targets have nowhere to record them.

Convert ITT to another format

Convert other formats to ITT