Really? CC Issues We Have to Deal With?

[jonnyghost]

I hate the Netflix captions, they are illegible on light background, might as well not be there at all. I'm surprised illegible captions are in compliance. If you had a wheelchair ramp that only reached halfway to the ground that would be in violation of the law.

 

[CrazyPaul]

I have a Panasonic DMP-BDT220 that I've been using a couple of months now and I'm subscribing to Netflix Streaming. I've only found one TV show that didn't work with CC through the HDMI cable and that was Hot In Cleveland.
Old episodes of Malcolm In The Middle and Arrested Development, which are list as having CC only, work through HDMI. Even old Jack Benny, Bob Hope and Red Skelton shows from the 50s.
This player does not have Component Outputs, so I connected the A/V jacks to my Samsung LN52A750 for CC even though I haven't had to use it.

Are you talking about white texts with black background (CC in default setting)? Netflix's subtitles have yellow texts without background, therefore you can only use its own subtitle button to turn it on/off. CC decoder has nothing to do with it. So you can connect the player via HDMI which can carry "overlay" captions on the signal. Same thing with DVD/BD movies that have subtitles that will work with HDMI connections. Otherwise, DVDs' CC (not subtitles) will not work with HDMI unless the player has a built-in CC decoder. (BD movies don't have CC since most of them have SDH.)

If you don't see subtitles on a show via Netflix streaming, that means Netflix hasn't added subtitles to that show yet. Remember that not all shows/movies via Netflix have subtitles but the company said that it promises to have all of them subtitled by 2014. Netflix agrees to subtitle all films by 2014 - CNN.com

Even though some shows/movies are subtitled, it's not always accurate. FYI, read CuriouslyMute's posts above since she's hearing and she knows what she talked about. That's bad news for all deaf members of Netflix.

 

[CuriouslyMute]

Even though some shows/movies are subtitled, it's not always accurate. FYI, read CuriouslyMute's posts above since she's hearing and she knows what she talked about. That's bad news for all deaf members of Netflix.

The odd part of that is that it's so inconsistent. There was an episode of South Park recently where the subtitles were useless. A line of dialog would be on screen long enough to only read 2 words, and then gone. Some shows have very inaccurate subtitles where the entire meaning of the dialog is lost.
Yet, some shows like the documentary I have on now have excellent subtitles (although still yellow. Who decided yellow with no background was a good idea?). This show's subtitles even point out exactly who is talking, and aren't overlapping any of the open captions (two guys on the show have a thick accent, so they're open captioned).
If they can get some of it right, why not all of it?

 

[CrazyPaul]

The odd part of that is that it's so inconsistent. There was an episode of South Park recently where the subtitles were useless. A line of dialog would be on screen long enough to only read 2 words, and then gone. Some shows have very inaccurate subtitles where the entire meaning of the dialog is lost.
Yet, some shows like the documentary I have on now have excellent subtitles (although still yellow. Who decided yellow with no background was a good idea?). This show's subtitles even point out exactly who is talking, and aren't overlapping any of the open captions (two guys on the show have a thick accent, so they're open captioned).
If they can get some of it right, why not all of it?

First of all, I would like to know whether all of the shows with subtitles you saw through Netflix had yellow texts with no background or some of them had white texts with black background (CC that requires TV's CC decoder to be enabled).

The reason for yellow texts with no background is that they are more readable than other colors. Same with OC movies at local theaters and most of DVD/BD movies as well.

My guess is that the bad subtitles you talked about are due to the poor workmanship of Netflix's captionmaker. I don't think that any device that has access to Netflix streaming has anything to do with the captioning problem. If you have Hulu, you can try to compare them (Hulu and Netflix). I just checked Hulu.com and it offers caption options, however it has commercials and it's for PC use only unless you subscribe to Hulu Plus which has limited commercials and can be watched from any Hulu Plus enabled device.

 

[CuriouslyMute]

ALL the subtitles on ALL the services that support it on my Roku Box are the yellow without background. It's difficult to read on most shows, impossible on others. I checked it out on my Android's Netflix app, it's easier to read there, but probably because it's so close.

"My guess is that the bad subtitles you talked about are due to the poor workmanship of Netflix's captionmaker"
Yes. I'm just wondering why that caption maker does so well on some shows, and completely drops the ball on other shows.

It irritates me. I don't want to invite a friend over to watch a movie just to find out the subtitles are trash.

First of all, I would like to know whether all of the shows with subtitles you saw through Netflix had yellow texts with no background or some of them had white texts with black background (CC that requires TV's CC decoder to be enabled).

The reason for yellow texts with no background is that they are more readable than other colors. Same with OC movies at local theaters and most of DVD/BD movies as well.

My guess is that the bad subtitles you talked about are due to the poor workmanship of Netflix's captionmaker. I don't think that any device that has access to Netflix streaming has anything to do with the captioning problem. If you have Hulu, you can try to compare them (Hulu and Netflix). I just checked Hulu.com and it offers caption options, however it has commercials and it's for PC use only unless you subscribe to Hulu Plus which has limited commercials and can be watched from any Hulu Plus enabled device.

 

[CrazyPaul]

ALL the subtitles on ALL the services that support it on my Roku Box are the yellow without background. It's difficult to read on most shows, impossible on others. I checked it out on my Android's Netflix app, it's easier to read there, but probably because it's so close.

"My guess is that the bad subtitles you talked about are due to the poor workmanship of Netflix's captionmaker"
Yes. I'm just wondering why that caption maker does so well on some shows, and completely drops the ball on other shows.

It irritates me. I don't want to invite a friend over to watch a movie just to find out the subtitles are trash.

It's possible that the company (captionmaker) employs more than one person. Know what I mean? If I were still a Netflix member, I would file a complaint to them regarding captioning problems you mentioned. I don't know about other deaf people. Maybe they don't care or are not aware of it since they can't hear vocal dialogues.

 

[CuriouslyMute]

It's possible that the company (captionmaker) employs more than one person. Know what I mean? If I were still a Netflix member, I would file a complaint to them regarding captioning problems you mentioned. I don't know about other deaf people. Maybe they don't care or are not aware of it since they can't hear vocal dialogues.

I asked Netflix about it, never got a reply.