This style of subtitling combines the attributes of both captions and subtitles. However, the actors speak with such heavy accents that subtitles would be helpful.Subtitles and captions are terms often used interchangeably, but they are different. Some movies have subtitles except for when the characters speak English. If you look at some of Warner's early Blu-rays (such as Harry Potter 5), they have both "regular" German and Italian subtitles as well as German and Italian SDH.Ĭriterion's subtitles are problematic for other reasons. I agree that the cost is marginal or even non-existent. I don't want to undercut the need for subtitles for the hearing impaired, so it seems plain we should demand both. I assume this would be an issue especially for non-native speakers. For me watching something like Days of Heaven or Walkabout and having the sound effects or music described is very distracting and detrimental to the visual impact of the film.The seemingly increasing lack of choice has bothered me for a better part of a decade, and has resulted in many unwatched movies sitting on the shelf waiting for me to try to fix the problem on my computer. So why doesn't a company like CRITERION (ahem) offer both options for their lavish blu-rays and dvds. This would seem like a marginal production cost, and I bet there's demand for both. If an English language film is only available with English sdh subtitles I have to rip it to my computer and try to find or make plain subtitles for it, which is incredibly time consuming.Īs I remember it in the early days of my DVD collecting (more than ten years ago) films often had BOTH plain and sdh English subtitles available. I can watch a film with no subtitles at all (especially with headphones) but my girlfriend's English isn't as good as mine and she likes to have subtitles on so as not to miss anything. It distracts from the visuals and can be alienating. Coming from a country where foreign language films are regularly subtitled I'm used to the intrusion of text for dialogue, but its an altogether different matter when sound effects and music are described or speakers are identified. However, I find sdh subtitles distracting to the point that I can't tolerate them.
Is anyone else frustrated by the lack of optional plain non-sdh or hearing impaired English subtitles? As a non-native speaker I often prefer to leave the subtitles on, especially if the soundtrack is cluttered or dialogue unclear. Nowadays, subtitles have all but replaced CC on media, except via broadcast TV. When I watch Farscape, I have to turn my DVD players Progressive-scan off, so that I can get the CC. I guess because the Line 21 is used for image data in Progressive mode.
The interesting thing is that CC can not be used if you're watching a Progressive-Scan input source. They come in via Line 21 or something like that.
The TV or DVD player has to have a CC decoder to be able to display them. In fact, the DVD seasons of Farscape have CC, but not subtitles. That's where you can actually see them hitting the backspace to correct what was typed.īut CC can also be pre-recorded and put on DVDs. All I know is what I've picked up from looking into it myself.īut close-captioning is obviously used for live shows like the news. What's the difference between close captioning and subtitles? Why do they use close captioning, what is the purpose of it? It is indeed horrible.