Skip to the converter

SMI to EBU-STL converter, without the upload.

Turn SMI subtitles into EBU-STL. It is converted in your browser, so the file never leaves your device.

Drop SMI files here

or choose from your computer paste with Ctrl V

Ready · several at once0 bytes uploaded, ever

Convert to

How to convert SMI to EBU-STL

  1. Add your SMI subtitles

    Drop SMI (SAMI) files onto the box above, or click it to choose them. ToAny reads the file's contents to detect the type, so a wrong extension does not matter.

  2. EBU-STL is already chosen

    Press Convert. There is nothing else to set. The work happens in this tab.

  3. Download

    Save the EBU-STL, or download everything as one ZIP if you converted several files.

Why ToAny

  • Private by construction

    The SMI to EBU-STL converter is part of this page and runs inside your browser. Your subtitles are never sent to ToAny or to anyone else.

  • No upload, no queue

    Nothing has to travel to a server and back, so the conversion starts the moment you press Convert, even on a slow connection.

  • Free, without an account

    No sign-up, no email address and no watermark. Add several files and download them together as a ZIP.

SMI to EBU-STL: what to expect

SMI is HTML-like and many players outside Windows and Korea do not read it. EBU STL is the file European broadcasters ask for when subtitles are delivered with a programme. SMI is at home in subtitles for Korean-market players and multilingual files; EBU-STL is the usual choice for subtitles delivered to European broadcasters.

The text is read as UTF-8 or UTF-16, whichever the file is. An older file in another code page is read using the charset it declares, or as Windows-1252 if it declares none, so accented letters in an unlabelled legacy file can come out wrong. A file that is not text, such as the picture-based subtitles of a DVD, is refused instead of being converted to nonsense. Of the styling, only italic, bold, underline and the position on screen (top, middle or bottom, left, centre or right) travel between formats; fonts, colours, outlines and effects do not. A SAMI file can hold several languages; only the first one found is read. The file is written as STL25.01 in the Latin character set, 25 frames per second, with italics, underline, line breaks, position and justification. Characters outside the character set become a question mark.

SMI vs EBU-STL

SMI

SAMI subtitles

SAMI is an HTML-like subtitle format from Microsoft, with each cue a SYNC tag holding the start time in milliseconds. It can hold several languages in one file, selected by style class. It is most common in South Korea.

Opens in Windows Media Player, KMPlayer, PotPlayer, VLC and Korean-market players

SMI converter
EBU-STL

EBU STL subtitles

EBU STL, defined in EBU Tech 3264, is the binary subtitle file of European broadcasters: a 1024-byte header followed by 128-byte blocks, each holding the in and out timecodes, position, justification and teletext-style text of one subtitle. It is usually named .stl, which is also the extension of 3D printing files, so ToAny tells them apart by the header inside.

Opens in Broadcast subtitling systems, Subtitle Edit, Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve

EBU-STL converter
SMI compared with EBU-STL
SMISAMI subtitlesEBU-STLEBU STL subtitles
Stands forSynchronized Accessible Media InterchangeEBU Subtitling data exchange format (STL)
TypeSubtitlesSubtitles
CompressionNoneNone (binary)
IntroducedThe late 1990s, by Microsoft1991, by the European Broadcasting Union
Opens inWindows Media Player, KMPlayer, PotPlayer, VLC and Korean-market playersBroadcast subtitling systems, Subtitle Edit, Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve
Best forSubtitles for Korean-market players and multilingual filesSubtitles delivered to European broadcasters
File extension.smi, .sami.ebustl

Questions

Are my subtitles uploaded anywhere?

No. The SMI to EBU-STL conversion runs inside your browser, on your own phone or computer. The file is not sent to ToAny or to anyone else.

Is anything lost when converting SMI to EBU-STL?

No further quality is lost: EBU-STL stores the decoded audio exactly. The result is identical in content.

Can I convert several SMI files at once?

Yes. Add as many as you like, convert them together and download each result or all of them as one ZIP.

How do I convert SMI to EBU-STL on Windows, Mac, iPhone or Android?

The steps are the same everywhere because ToAny runs in the web browser: open this page in a current version of Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox, add the SMI file, press Convert and save the EBU-STL. There is nothing to install.

Is there a file size limit?

Yes, but a subtitle file is small. Files up to 50 MB are accepted, far more than any real subtitle file. Beyond that the limit is your device's memory, since nothing is uploaded; a computer copes with large files better than a phone.