movies/tv TV subtitles (Good or Bad?)

[Jon the VGNerd 896]

Back in the day, closed captions (or CC/TV Subtitles) always provides words for the people's dialogues, especially adding up the humor when it comes to sound effects such as: BOOM! THUD! ZOOM! SCRITCH! (all which happened in early 2011, if I remember correctly). However, not many people like the TV subtitles for different channels; many people have though it was a bad idea to implement it there as it always freezes at times after commercial breaks and shows, and it basically goes out of sync, either too ahead or too far behind. Nevertheless, feel free to opinionate about the closed captions from many TV channels.

 

Me? I myself have a love/hate for CC, sometimes for humor but at times, as I mentioned before, it tends to lock up for a few, if not several seconds when a show hits a commercial break and that it goes way too fast, making it difficult to catch up (I assume the people who are responsible for making TV subtitles forgot to fix it or are too oblivious to those).

[Ihei 714]

I love TV subtitles. They are pretty funny. I don't really blame it when it messes up, since it rarely does that on my TV, and it makes it funnier. :3

[Starlighty 1,080]

Tv subtitle are funny on my screen because random numbers and letter pop up when I am watching tv OR i notice all these misspelled words on it

[Scootalove 10,692]

Good, since they add random humor and slapstick humor to keep people laughing and occupied. So, it would be good to have them.

[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 777]

          It's been a long while since I experienced CC for the telly but when I did I didn't run into out of place words or random symbols all that often. When I did though it did give me a good laugh from what would otherwise be a serious scene. I always had CC on because I not only enjoyed reading what they were saying but I also felt more engaged with the show. 

[NothingIsEverything 1,258]

It's good to have them because my mother is deaf and I grew up on CC. CC also helps for scenes where you can't really tell what the person is saying (I'm thinking Jacob from GTA IV) or when someone is inaudiable when a loud noise happens.

 

But CC is a problem with the lag as stated before (especially during live events) and some movies and TV shows skim on the CC, meaning that the CC only gets the gist of it, not the whole dialogue that is being said. Plus, if we got rid of CC, how do you think the deaf community would react to something like that? Not that it would ever happen, but still.

[Twiliscael 3,962]

Only for anime or otherwise foreign films or shows. In these scenarios, it's almost always necessary considering I don't speak or understand there languages. In English, they just annoy me. I watch TV to be lazy and be entertained, not to have to actually use my brain 

[Jokuc 8,176]

Well it is great to have subtitles when you are watching something where the people speaks a language you do not understand. And sometimes I like to have subtitles for when they speak english, mostly when I can't have such a high volume to hear what they are actually saying. But when I have the volume a bit higher and I actually can hear clearly what the people are saying, I usually turn off the subtitles since I think they are a bit annoying and distracting. Especially when they show wrong text. When they speak Swedish I don't use subtitles either, obviously.

[~Silver Essence~ 2,625]

I mostly find it of use towards those who are deaf.

 

Since they can't hear, this is a great way for it to be entertained by everyone, deaf or not.

 

Other than that, I find it generally ok.

[Evilshy 5,093]

I almost always have them on. I seldom watch TV/movies without doing something else, so being able to read when things get loud is good. Also, some movies themselves get loud, and it's nice to read lines that you missed.

 

Also, I watch a fair amount of anime and foreign stuff, and you always need them for those.

[notdog1996 315]

I needed the English subtitles when I started learning the language.  Now I don't put them but I'm grateful they existed.  Also, deaf people need them, even if they can be very crappy...  

 

(To be honest, sometimes they can piss me off if the audio is in English and there are French subtitles.  The news love to do that...  Also, I can't read subtitles on the T.V without my glasses, so I end up not reading them anyway.)

Edited July 30, 2013 by notdog1996

[Fox 5,331]

They're good for knowing what the hell is happening. Seriously, how the hell would you understand if you didn't know the original language it's deciphered in? 

[Serbon div 386]

I choose maybe, cause sometimes they get annoying, and sometimes they are very useful to know what is going on.

 

(I need more characters, ah, that's better)

[Krys9 456]

I honestly never used CC before so I really don't have an opinion on them. It's there for people who want to use it though. I might try them sometime to see how they are.

[Mutemutt 773]

It's nice when everyone around you starts talking over the tv and you can't just turn up the volume without getting into a volume war where everyone is trying overpower everyone else. Either that or they are watching a movie on the other side of the house, in which case I lost the volume war before it even started. That said, I rarely ever used the captions on the tv.

 

When it comes to foreign movies and anime, I usually stick with subtitles even if a dub is available. Besides the fact that some dub overs sound terrible (but not all), I just prefer subtitles.