---
title: Roles Attribute
framework: professional-video-applications
role: article
path: professional-video-applications/roles-attribute
---

# Roles Attribute

## Roles Attribute

Roles Attribute Assign video, audio, title, and caption elements a role.

Overview

You can assign a role to a media component to distinguish the nature of the media component from other components. The `role` attribute format is: `main-role.sub-role`.

For captions, the main role must include the caption format in the following form: *roleName?*`captionFormat=`*captionFormat*.

The subrole must reflect the particular language tag, and optional region tag, for the caption role, for example, `en` or `en-US`. The following table provides details on these values.

| Component | Description | | --- | --- | | `roleName` | The caption role name. [IMAGE]: spacer *Cannot contain the “.” or “?” characters.* [IMAGE]: spacer *Cannot be only an “_” character.* [IMAGE]: spacer **Note:** Users can edit the caption role name in the Role Editor. | | `captionFormat` | The caption format. Valid values are `ITT` or `CEA608`. | | `sub-role` | The language tag, and optional region tag, for the subrole. [IMAGE]: spacer Final Cut Pro supports only a subset of language tags. Final Cut Pro automatically maps unsupported language tags to `en` (English). [IMAGE]: spacer Final Cut Pro formats language codes according to RFC 5646, which is a part of BCP 47. |

The following are caption role examples:

-     `”ITT Subtitles?captionFormat=ITT.en”`: The English language subrole of an ITT format caption role named `ITT Subtitles`. -     `”My Subtitles?captionFormat=ITT.fr-CA”`: The French (Canada) language subrole of an ITT format caption role named `My Subtitles`. -     `”CEA-608 Captions?captionFormat=CEA608.it”`: The Italian language subrole of a CEA608 format caption role named `CEA-608 Captions`.