Current Events > The Great Subtitle Debate.

(+) Yeah! (+)

This poll is strictly for me to gather some preliminary info. All I want to know is the frequency of subtitle use.
I know that if I put "I use subtitles sometimes (like if I'm watching anime/K-Dramas/British Television/a Christopher Nolan movie)" most people would just click that and that wouldn't mean anything to me.

You put on a movie, play a TV show, turn on a video game. Are you turning the subtitles on, or leaving them off?
That's all I would like to know.

Okay I might as well post my rant here because why split it up into two topics lol:
I think anyone who creates media needs to pay more attention to the Subtitles they put out with their stuff.

With the advent of a lot more realistic, slower, almost mumbling-like acting in Movies/Shows/Video Games, people are a lot more inclined to turn on the subtitles. But as such, I think the majority of people who use subtitles don't need it because they are part of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community, and need to literally read every single word (and Closed Captioning) provided to know what the heck is being said/conveyed. They need subtitles they can kinda glance at in case an actor gets real quiet in an intense scene, or even when they're yelling during an action scene with lots of explosions.

The problem arises when the Subtitles that are provided are done so lazily. Sometimes it feels like they literally just copy and pasted the whole script into the subtitle file and tinkered with some timings, which might have been fine when acting wasn't subtle way back when, or to Deaf people who need to read every line.

The biggest problem this makes is that you can read the entire sentence, sometimes even two sentences, before the actor has even gotten halfway through acting it. You like prematurely spoil yourself on whatever delivery was going to made before it even happened. When I'm watching comedy shows I often laugh before the punchline is even said because I glance at it before it happens. I watched a ton of anime so I feel like I'm good at glancing at a line of subtitles and looking back at the scene, which is why I want subtitles: just to be able to hear whatever the heck is being said. When I was watching Creed III, I felt like I needed subtitles for whatever Dame/Jonathan Majors was saying.

The way to make this fix is to put some effort into implementing your Subtitles (not closed captioning). Subtitles for the average person should be paced so they don't reveal things before they happen. If a character is going through a long monologue, nice and slow with a lot of emphasis that has you on the edge of your seat, don't just put the entire fucking line there! It destroys any tenseness of the scene! I was watching a movie recently and I knew a major character who had a gun to their head was gonna get shot in the middle of his sentence because the subtitles said "Blah blah blah bl--" Like what the heck!

I think this used to be brushed off as "barely anyone reads subtitles unless they are Deaf, in which case they need to read every line at once, along with sound effects and stuff, and that is a small majority of our viewers anyways." But that's not true anymore. So many people just turn that shit on because every once in a while a character says something you can't understand so you just have the subtitles on the whole time.

I kinda hate how it's either, "can't understand a thing" or "ruin the tension of any scene." If you're making a movie/game, and you know a large chunk of your viewers are gonna turn on subtitles, you should put effort into how they're presented so it doesn't fuck your viewers over.

Always have subtitles on. You can miss so much without them and you get to learn while watching.

100% of the time. My hearing sucks

I was expecting the subtitle debate to be between Diddy Kong's Quest and Diddy's Kong Quest.

games and sometimes movies usually put subtitles on crowds that are usually farther than what you can hear clearly or aren't in focus.

It's nice to learn about the world through those, so I turn then on when I can.

if i'm doing something else or casually enjoying, then subtitles is a must. listening to music or doing other things. i also watch a lot of foreign movies, so subtitles are a must there too.

but if it's an intimate, cozy, focused setting where i'm doing nothing but watching that movie or whatever, then there's no need for the subtitles. they just distract.

The biggest reason I like subtitles is sound mixing. So many movies, games, etc. fail to have audible dialogue. Sometimes the music is too loud. Sometimes the dialogue goes from normal volume to hushed whispers.

I like having an easy place to put my eyes and understand exactly what's being said. I don't always read them, but I like having them there.

I will turn the subtitles on in games cause of the audio mixing issues mentioned above
This wasn't an issue in Tales of Vesperia (the text appears in text balloons) but there were times I could barely hear what the characters were saying

cuh posted...

Always on.

If I buy a new story-heavy video game, I immediately go to settings to ensure that subtitles are on (even though they always are lol).

Always on when watching TV at home. I even like putting auto-generated captions when watching stuff on YouTube >.>

The only times I dont have subs are when Im watching a movie at a theater

I hate that they removed subtitles from full screen YouTube.

If it's a comedy, I have them turned off because I don't want the joke to be spoiled. For everything else they're on

I use subtitles 100% of the time now. It used to be only on shows/movies where some of the characters had hard to understand accents, but I got so used to having subtitles I just always have them on now.

DuranOfForcena posted...

huh? subtitles work fine for me on full screen

Mobile then.

Subtitles ruin the experience as you'll keep glancing away from the actors on screen and reading the rest of their dialogue before they even finish

When I watch anime, I want to hear the original Japanese VAs, even if it means reading Englsih subtitles.

100% of the time. Current trends for mastering sound in movies and tv have been awful. Dynamic range takes precedent over intelligible dialogue.

0% of the time.

Games get subtitles. Foreign language film/TV get subtitles.

Everything else, no subtitles. I find them distracting when I can actually hear the dialogue.

Vietnamese where possible. English if not.

Games? yes. Movies/TV? No.

Another example for the spoiling aspect of subtitles that I didnt expect at all was in She Hulk (spoiler warning for the last episode of She Hulk):

Throughout the episode, Kevin Feige is mentioned several times and he is built up to as the final confrontation She Hulk will face in the episode. However, every time the name Kevin is mentioned by a character, the subtitles spell it out as K.E.V.I.N, so when he is finally revealed to be an A.I. machine the entire punchline of the joke and plot twist of the episode is ruined before then.

I use subtitles 99% of the time because I have trouble hearing people all the time, but it was so disappointing to have that spoiled for me as an avid subtitle user. Im used to the whole dialogue sentence stopping as someone gets shot or a jump scare happens etc so I just learn to deal with that, but that was something I had no way of knowing could be spoiled with subtitles.

I do agree that they should implement subtitles in a better way by having the singular words sync up to what a person is saying, one word at a time, but I dont think Ive ever seen that implemented in anything Ive ever watched so I dont see it happening anytime soon.

Games, always. TV and Movies, never. Unless it's not in English, of course.

I watch a lot of British stuff, and sometimes the accents get a bit heavy.

DavidZ2844 posted...

I do agree that they should implement subtitles in a better way by having the singular words sync up to what a person is saying, one word at a time, but I dont think Ive ever seen that implemented in anything Ive ever watched so I dont see it happening anytime soon.

This also sounds horrible though, honestly. I wouldn't mind glancing more at the subtitles, but I don't want that stuff changing every single word and distracting me from everything else.

Is the spoilerphobia really so crippling that subtitles are evil now?

ApherosyLove posted...

This also sounds horrible though, honestly. I wouldn't mind glancing more at the subtitles, but I don't want that stuff changing every single word and distracting me from everything else.

Uh isnt that what you suggested in your initial post though? I was agreeing with you on that suggestion. Unless I read it wrong and misunderstood you, in which case my bad.

Always

Foreign media; subs are a must if it's live action. Dubbed is okay for animated stuff usually.

English-language media, I tend to turn subs on in games but off in movies / shows.

Subtitles 100% of the time! Only time I dont is in theaters!

Trumble posted...

Foreign media; subs are a must if it's live action. Dubbed is okay for animated stuff usually.

It's really fun (or moderately anoying) when subs don't match the dub.

Its very rare that I do not use subtitles. It's usually only either when I have no option (obviously) or if the movie is trying to achieve a very particular visual style that I don't want to interrupt with onscreen text

I live in the path of the airport. I use subtitles whenever possible because every few minutes, there's an airplane flying overhead.

MarcyWarcy posted...

Its very rare that I do not use subtitles. It's usually only either when I have no option (obviously) or if the movie is trying to achieve a very particular visual style that I don't want to interrupt with onscreen text

Yeah, that or when the specific streaming app/platform displays subtitles extremely poorly and has it cover up a good amount of whats onscreen.

Always prefer subtitles to display in the black boxes rather than where the content actually is, so annoying when theres all that unused black box and they still plaster it over the viewing space.

awsomemanspiff posted...

Subtitles 100% of the time! Only time I dont is in theaters!

I like the fact that theatres always have subtitles here.

No subs unless it's a different language.
If it's on in a game it's because I have the game volume off.
Get good headphones.

why i use subtitles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR98SmoCN0o
also i misinterpret words for some reason, but only when it's digital. i seem to do ok with people talking to me in real life

If it's live action I generally prefer subtitles. If it's animated I prefer dubbed.

Ever since I realized how much dialog I either miss or misunderstand when I don't use them, I always use them nowadays.

I'm not much of a TV/movie watcher, though. I prefer video gaming.

Regardless of language the answer is more than 70%, whether it be because I don't trust sound mixing (fucking looking at you Nolan) or because I want the original format of the foreign media I'm watching.

Definitely more for gaming. I go dub for tv/movies if there is an option, but shows like Peaky Blinders I'm fine understanding what they say.

If i can get subtitles, i will go for subtitles.

I only go without, if the option isnt available.

ESPICIALLY for live action shows... somehow dubbed media tends to have clearer pronounciation on average... not sure why, maybe its because they dont have to act with their whole body, and only their voice, thus they can focus on just that?

DavidZ2844 posted...

Uh isnt that what you suggested in your initial post though? I was agreeing with you on that suggestion. Unless I read it wrong and misunderstood you, in which case my bad.

I just want better paced subtitles, so like smaller chunks especially in scenes with slow dialogue. But definitely not one word at a time.

Honestly, in the case of a big action sequence, I would prefer the longer chunks of subtitles so I can glance at it and then watch the action for as long as possible.

It has to be done on a scene by scene basis, and with the sheer number of people who watch with subtitles now, I feel like that's something movie makers/game developers can afford to do.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Is the spoilerphobia really so crippling that subtitles are evil now?

Is that really what you took away from this?