#1 official mpeg-4 subtitle format

[bond]

In contrary to prior MPEG Standards (MPEG-1/2) MPEG-4
now offers its own official subtitle/text stream format
specified under ISO 14496-17!

it is text based and also allows all sort of animations
optionally (scrolling, changing colors, definition of the
position aso..)
with utf-8/16 support it also supports asian/arabic/cyrilic
aso characters

you can find the specs of the final draft here:
http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc29/open/29view/29n5831c.h
tm
(29n5831t.doc at the bottom)