Perceptions of Netflix captions?

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jchristian

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Hi,

I'm working on a potential news story about perceptions of Netflix captions by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. I've been watching Netflix with subtitles lately, and I've been surprised by the prevalence of errors, weird formatting, nonsense characters and the like. Am I just noticing problems that exist in all captioning, or is Netflix particularly bad?

I'd love to hear your stories, either here or by email: jonathan dot a dot christian at gmail dot com.

JC
 
I have been subscribing to Netflix for 2 years. The problem mostly lies in the color of the captions. It's yellow and often times I can't read it when there is bright colored background. White is the color used the most on movies/tv and that makes it hard for me to read the yellow captions. I'm always hoping there's black/dark backgrounds.

It would be nice to have black outline against the yellow font or have us choose the color of the font. I heard that Netflix was planning to include that option in the future. I think no matter what the color is, there should be black outline over the colored font for easier reading and less chance of it matching with the background.

I can't say much about the errors because I am deaf and I can't vouch for that but there were times where I caught the errors. I didn't think it was that bad because I'm thinking it's better than nothing.
 
I've had my subscription for more thank six years. I get frustrated when it's not captioned but mainly I find that if you wait, it becomes captioned. I've rarely had issues with the subtitles and I haven't had issues with the color. It's just the wait until I get the captions on a film. Other than that, I've been mainly happy...but I do watch a lot of foreign films too.....

Laura
 
I watch Netflix via laptop and usually watch a tv series at a time until I finish all seasons. Because of my viewing habits I have never run into picking something and finding out it has not been captioned yet. The size and position is generally readable without obstructing too much.
They are accurate enough to follow the plot although there are quirky translations that must be machine generated rather then done by a person. For example Fringe which I watching now will caption one of the characters names as "Boliva" sometimes and "Olivia" other times. Since I have figured out by now that they are more likely talking about a person then a South American country I don't get lost.
I feel like there is some inconsistency in captions from show to show. Some will include the name of who is talking like a script - others do not, some will tell you if music is playing - others do not, etc... I ran into one scifi movie that was very artistically captioned - it was like a comic book experience with different fonts and sizes strategically positioned to enhance the scene. I suspect that may have been done by the moviemaker rather then Netflix.
 
jchristian said:
Hi,

I'm working on a potential news story about perceptions of Netflix captions by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. I've been watching Netflix with subtitles lately, and I've been surprised by the prevalence of errors, weird formatting, nonsense characters and the like. Am I just noticing problems that exist in all captioning, or is Netflix particularly bad?

I'd love to hear your stories, either here or by email: jonathan dot a dot christian at gmail dot com.

JC
Click to expand...
Yes, POOR WORKMANSHIP!
 
MangaReader said:
It would be nice to have black outline against the yellow font or have us choose the color of the font. I heard that Netflix was planning to include that option in the future. I think no matter what the color is, there should be black outline over the colored font for easier reading and less chance of it matching with the background.
Click to expand...

Just so you know, you can now go into Netflix preferences and change the colour of the captions, font as well as backgrounds :)

I have to say that the captioning while not perfect IS getting significantly better than it was even 6 months ago. It's certainly a lot better than most of the over air CC on tv at this point, and if there is a major CC glitch and you provide them with very specific details they do actually fix it (it doesn't happen over night, but it does get corrected).
 
The captions go weird. They take over the center of the screen, linger, the bottom lines only work but pile up. It is awful.
 
Anij said:
Just so you know, you can now go into Netflix preferences and change the colour of the captions, font as well as backgrounds :)

I have to say that the captioning while not perfect IS getting significantly better than it was even 6 months ago. It's certainly a lot better than most of the over air CC on tv at this point, and if there is a major CC glitch and you provide them with very specific details they do actually fix it (it doesn't happen over night, but it does get corrected).
Click to expand...
 
Periodically the captions stop working or lag behind the scenes and I have to go back to the Netflix menu screen. Sometimes when doing that it locks up and kicks me completely out and my Roku reboots. It's a pain. It doesn't happen on all movies and I can't figure out any consistent thing that causes it. Not sure if it's Netflix, my system, or my wifi signal. It would seem to be Netflix because I don't seen how my system could get the scene and captions out of sync.

The captions I don't like that are harder to follow are the ones that keep up to three lines at the bottom of the screen and put the newest at the bottom moving the other two up. Besides covering too much of the screen, they are hard to read as they keep moving up.
 
Color and delay from caption/scene. Sometimes (but rarely) it cuts out mid-sentence and the actor is speaking, but there is no captions for the 'other half' of the sentence.
I know I set my caption color it yellow/black outline but the captions change the color to white? It's more challenging to read it especially when it's over the Intro Credits.
Also when I watched a TV series it was for majority of the episodes... but there were some in between that had no CC? So CC for Episode 3,4,5 but none for 6,7 but CC again after that.

- I know a person below told how to get colours for CC...
But here it is again.
Go to your profile (I did this on my computer) click Your Account - Subtitle Settings and you can change the color/font/size/background.
 
DoctorStarkidPotter said:
Color and delay from caption/scene. Sometimes (but rarely) it cuts out mid-sentence and the actor is speaking, but there is no captions for the 'other half' of the sentence.
I know I set my caption color it yellow/black outline but the captions change the color to white? It's more challenging to read it especially when it's over the Intro Credits.
Also when I watched a TV series it was for majority of the episodes... but there were some in between that had no CC? So CC for Episode 3,4,5 but none for 6,7 but CC again after that.

- I know a person below told how to get colours for CC...
But here it is again.
Go to your profile (I did this on my computer) click Your Account - Subtitle Settings and you can change the color/font/size/background.
Click to expand...

OMG, you saved my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you sooo much!! Never knew that and here I am suffering through stupid yellow font with no background!! OMG! I can't thank you enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I've had very few bad experiences with captions on Netflix, i don't use them for movie much, mostly TV shows and I've found that there are muuuuuuuch fewer glitches with the captions on Netflix than when it airs on tv.

If it's relevant I stream it through my xbox.
 
DoctorStarkidPotter said:
Color and delay from caption/scene. Sometimes (but rarely) it cuts out mid-sentence and the actor is speaking, but there is no captions for the 'other half' of the sentence.
I know I set my caption color it yellow/black outline but the captions change the color to white? It's more challenging to read it especially when it's over the Intro Credits.
Also when I watched a TV series it was for majority of the episodes... but there were some in between that had no CC? So CC for Episode 3,4,5 but none for 6,7 but CC again after that.

- I know a person below told how to get colours for CC...
But here it is again.
Go to your profile (I did this on my computer) click Your Account - Subtitle Settings and you can change the color/font/size/background.
Click to expand...

I changed the settings on the computer. I go to Netflix on TV and the captions are still in yellow. I go to settings in Netflix on TV and changed the colors/settings of font for captions. I go pick something to see if it works. Nope. Still yucky yellow!!!!!!!!!!

How do you make your setting stick? It doesn't work for me. Help!!
 
MangaReader said:
I changed the settings on the computer. I go to Netflix on TV and the captions are still in yellow. I go to settings in Netflix on TV and changed the colors/settings of font for captions. I go pick something to see if it works. Nope. Still yucky yellow!!!!!!!!!!

How do you make your setting stick? It doesn't work for me. Help!!
Click to expand...

How is your TV Netflix set up? From Wii? Apple Tv? Also from what I observed... not all the time it'll be your preferred color =/ I watched Doctor Who and it was from my color - white (which I can't read well) to my color again...
 
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Thanks for the replies, everyone. I'd love to PM a few people with individual followup questions, which I'll hopefully get to tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm still watching this thread, or feel free to email me: jonathan dot a dot christian at gmail dot com.

Is anyone aware of previous news stories on caption quality? It seems to me like a big issue!
 
DoctorStarkidPotter said:
How is your TV Netflix set up? From Wii? Apple Tv? Also from what I observed... not all the time it'll be your preferred color =/ I watched Doctor Who and it was from my color - white (which I can't read well) to my color again...
Click to expand...

From wireless to my router. Nothing I did changes it. It still is yucky yellow. :( I don't see what the point is of having caption settings. Totally useless.
 
MangaReader said:
From wireless to my router. Nothing I did changes it. It still is yucky yellow. :( I don't see what the point is of having caption settings. Totally useless.
Click to expand...

Hmm... I will ask my dad if there is a way of doing captions through that. I only know from Computer and Apple TV :( Ugh, agree! I can't see certain colours and the captions are like the colours I can't see?! REALLY? Or a certain text I can't see... Ugh. Wish we could 'customize' our own captions for movies, tv shows etc...
 
Does Netflix have closed captioning? For all movies?

I really want to download Netflix but I don't want to waste money unless it has closed captioning for all the movies.

Does it? Thanks!
 
Not all are CC - older movies that was on Stream before Netflix was ordered to add CC does not have CC. But newer movies or recently additional has CC.
 
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