Why we all need subtitles now?

[MattHooper]

Strangely, I've never had a problem hearing the dialogue in a Nolan film. But then I mostly watch them in my home theater (and not even very loud). So it could be the home release mixes being different. (I can't remember if I've heard complaints about home releases of Nolan's movies).

 

[MattHooper]

I believe I've mentioned before my gripe is often that the sound effects are mixed too low for my liking (it can't be that I'm biased because I do sound effects... )

The laziest way to make dialogue intelligible is to just drop the levels of everything else (usually sound effects first, then music). I personally like to sense the environment of the scene.

Among the best examples I can think of for sound effect environments mixed loud and bold, and yet maintaining dialogue intelligibility, are BladeRunner and Apocalypse now.

Another excellent example of this was Ron Howard's recent movie Thirteen Lives about the Thai cave rescue. That was a director who clearly cared about sound, because it's not easy to push the SFX up that much without sacrificing intelligeability. It means he had a very good mixer who pulled it off on his own accord, or Ron pushed the mixers to get there.

 

[Waxx]

I'm rather fluent in french, dutch and english, and understand german and are always disturbed by subtitles, as the translation is often a bit offf. Yesterday i watched the first final of the Queen Elisabeth Competition for voice, and altough the presenter of the evening spoke in 4 languages (Dutch, French, German and English) it was an enlightment that there were no subtitles on the stream of the contest itself. Captation was done by our national tv (VRT/RTBF) but on the site of the contest there is a livestream of that broadcast without the tv presentation and the subtitles (just raw footage) and i prefered that to the broadcast on our tw stations because of that.

And i have the same with movies or youtube (& co), i prefer no subtitles except when it's in a language that i don't understand.

 

[Galliardist]

This came up on my phone.

Why Is Everyone Watching TV With the Subtitles On?

It’s not just you.

www.theatlantic.com

Requires sign-in to read the whole argument. But this bit caught my eye:

The good news, according to Onnalee Blank, the four-time Emmy Award–winning sound mixer on Game of Thrones, is that it’s not your fault that you can’t hear well enough to follow this stuff. It’s not your TV’s fault either, or your speakers—your sound system might be lousy, but that’s not why you can’t hear the dialogue. “It has everything to do with the streaming services and how they’re choosing to air these shows,” Blank told me.

Specifically, it has everything to do with LKFS, which stands for “Loudness, K-weighted, relative to full scale” and which, for the sake of simplicity, is a unit for measuring loudness. Traditionally it’s been anchored to the dialogue. For years, going back to the golden age of broadcast television and into the pay-cable era, audio engineers had to deliver sound levels within an industry-standard LKFS, or their work would get kicked back to them. That all changed when streaming companies seized control of the industry, a period of time that rather neatly matches Game of Thrones’ run on HBO. According to Blank, Game of Thrones sounded fantastic for years, and she’s got the Emmys to prove it. Then, in 2018, just prior to the show’s final season, AT&T bought HBO’s parent company and overlaid its own uniform loudness spec, which was flatter and simpler to scale across a large library of content. But it was also, crucially, un-anchored to the dialogue.

“So instead of this algorithm analyzing the loudness of the dialogue coming out of people’s mouths,” Blank explained to me, “it analyzes the whole show as loudness. So if you have a loud music cue, that’s gonna be your loud point. And then, when the dialogue comes, you can’t hear it.”

 

[fpitas]

This came up on my phone.

Why Is Everyone Watching TV With the Subtitles On?

It’s not just you.

www.theatlantic.com

Requires sign-in to read the whole argument. But this bit caught my eye:

It's almost hard to believe the algorithm is that inflexible.

 

[Talisman]

This came up on my phone.

Why Is Everyone Watching TV With the Subtitles On?

It’s not just you.

www.theatlantic.com

Requires sign-in to read the whole argument. But this bit caught my eye:

I really don't know how they don't realize that the masterings of many films are unlistenable on a human level.
Clarity of dialogue should be the first priority. When I watch video, of any kind, I'm much more forgiving of low quality video, but low quality audio I just can't tolerate and have to quit. It happens to me with several movies.

 

[tprevett]

Subtitles are great when your significant other will not shut up! lol.. but seriously, when the kids are over and they are being loud, they are a godsend.

 

[juliusskinner]

I've definitely noticed that audio in movies has been getting more and more complex. Sometimes it feels like they mix background sounds so loud that you can barely hear what characters are saying. Subtitles have become a lifesaver for me because of this, even though I'm not hard of hearing or anything.

I also think subtitles are crucial for localization. If you've got a film made in one country but shown internationally, good subtitling can make or break the experience for a viewer. For example, humor often doesn't translate well without some localized context.

I actually use one of the best subtitling companies for some of my work projects. Their service is fast and pretty accurate, which has been a lifesaver.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

We need subtitles due to goofy soundtracks. I can hear voices in 90 year old movies.

 

[ZolaIII]

Well as much too much compression is a problem almost none is if you want very close to realistic DR and SPL. If it's mixed for big space/speakers/screen and sometimes they forgot to actually adjust it for home small to medium it's a problem for dialogues and voices in generally. Using good old compressor in the form of night mode (once usual future but today rarity) or proper stereo downmix usually helps. Using a broadcast standardised normalisation also. If you genuinely can't get it right (subjectively or being limited with either gear or conditions) sub's (subtitles) ain't worsest thing ever. Sub's are problematic for other set of their own reasons (bumming, sync, really good ones [semantics, poetry, prose, slang...]...).

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Well as much too much compression is a problem almost none is if you want very close to realistic DR and SPL. If it's mixed for big space/speakers/screen and sometimes they forgot to actually adjust it for home small to medium it's a problem for dialogues and voices in generally. Using good old compressor in the form of night mode (once usual future but today rarity) or proper stereo downmix usually helps. Using a broadcast standardised normalisation also. If you genuinely can't get it right (subjectively or being limited with either gear or conditions) sub's (subtitles) ain't worsest thing ever. Sub's are problematic for other set of their own reasons (bumming, sync, really good ones [semantics, poetry, prose, slang...]...).

Bull. I can hear voices easier at home with room correction and 3 way center. Last weekend at AMC with Oppenheimer was a nightmare. Wouldn't call that a difficult soundtrack. Also, the washed out picture was a pleasure. My grandfather watched pristine 35 mm films in 1933.

 

[ZolaIII]

Bull. I can hear voices easier at home with room correction and 3 way center. Last weekend at AMC with Oppenheimer was a nightmare. Wouldn't call that a difficult soundtrack. Also, the washed out picture was a pleasure. My grandfather watched pristine 35 mm films in 1933.

Actually I am satisfied as it is right now at home with my humble 2.2 stereo and my beamer. I do stereo downmix, use EBU R128 and loudness and of course system is EQ-ed. Did play a bit more with MadVR and Epson with positive results last night (a bit better tone mapping with little less blooming and better color calibration [added a bit of red and little less of blue]). I also know who do the best titles for my language (Bambula) so I go for his when ever available. Hover music soundtrack mixes and in generally mixes do differ a lot even in high budget movies. For example Guardians Of Galaxy Vol 3 whose just fine, music mixes were brought to front just fine and effects where good, Top Gun had music to much broth in front at times and effects where generally a little raw on the other hand Puss In Boots: The Last Wish had music lay down too much, rest whose fine, some introduction cards where too fast so I rewind them once or twice but that one has soul (which is rare today) and healthy dose of humor so it's forgiven by me. Point is you can do plenty to fine adjust it and improve the experience considerably. I do it with relatively cheap equipment with rather good results. Best regards and have a nice time.

 

[LouB]

We need subtitles due to goofy soundtracks. I can hear voices in 90 year old movies.

Not goofy, "total crap" is a much better description. And it's intentional which makes it all the more frustrating. Somehow a "famous" director got other Hollywood idiots on board to make movies where, sound tracks, background noise & special effects drown out the dialogue. Can't wait until they decide shooting movies in the dark is really hip & is great art, so on top of not understanding what's being said we won't be able to see it either.

 

[audio_tony]

A few evenings ago, my wife and I were watching a movie, and had the volume at a level with the dialogue was at a level that both of us could hear ok.

Some minutes into the movie, there was some shouting followed by gunshots, and the entire room shook.

Utterly pointless! And we have noticed there are many, many movies like this.

A couple of years ago, the BBC was also slated for producing a TV series with poor sounding dialogue.