My hearing isn't what it used to be, due to all kinds of reasons, but this makes me feel a bit better about using subtitles so much these days.

Interesting. So that's why Christopher Nolan's Batman (played by Christian Bale) spoke in that low, gravelly voice.

"I'm Batman."
"D'ju say something?"

Good video going through all the things going into it. For at least a decade now, and more like fifteen years, I've kept the subtitles on for everything, always. Dated a girl in college that it used to drive nuts, but she relented after about my twentieth time rewinding a scene a dozen times and turning up the volume to try to understand something that was said.

While I don’t use closed caption or subtitles very often, there are times when words or a phrase is either softly spoken or mumbled that I engage option to understand the context of the dialogue. Very helpful in these circumstances.

What drives me nuts is one program I can watch and hear with the volume on 10 and another one I still can't understand with the volume on 90.

I use subtitles all the time and have for years.

Subtitles all the time. And they need to quit with the damn news video segment and type it up. I can read it so much faster than the bumbling attempts at spicing it up.

That's the best video explaining this issue I've seen.

Seems like every month or so there's a forum thread in which someone is complaining about how they can't understand the dialogue on a movie they just watched.

Every modern thing we watch, be it made for TV or a theater release, streamed of on DVD/BD, we turn on subtitles. Have for years. And my wife's hearing is excellent.

Older movies and TV series': Don't need 'em.

We have a good 5.1 surround sound system with a center channel speaker, too. And I think I have that boosted by 3 dB.

I use CC most of the time even if I can make out the audio provided the placement is not objectionable. Like right in the middle of the screen. Fox News does this on some of the shows like "outnumbered"

What bugs me though is the increase in volume that comes on during a car chase, or such scene. I realize that's done to accommodate movie theater surround sound and/or home theater systems, but if I'm watching at night and have the normal sound to a level that's comfortable and not overly loud as to disturb others near by, when an action scene comes on it's so frigging loud my wife says I'm losing my hearing and to "turn that shit down" so I'm constantly jockeying the volume control.

If I'm watching in my office on my excellent PC monitor, I found using my Airpods goes a long way to making spoken words understandable.

quote:

Originally posted by NavyGuy:
I found using my Airpods goes a long way to making spoken words understandable.

I have hearing aids ordered. Should be here on 2/7. Crowded rooms with lots of extraneous noise is difficult to hear spoken words, and working in an OR with people who mumble, behind masks so I can't read their lips, has gotten too frustrating and I'm tired of saying, "Huh?".

For the past few months I have been using my Airpods as well. They help a lot, particularly with the TV.

quote:

I use subtitles all the time and have for years

Ok for movies where they actually put in the time. Machine subtitles are a lazy way of doing things and while phonetically correct they are a joke. We are talking about news programs for example.

SOA, when they had the episodes with the Irish gun runners, it was necessary to understand what the heck was being said...

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
SOA, when they had the episodes with the Irish gun runners, it was necessary to understand what the heck was being said...

There is a guy on the TV show Moonshiners -- think his name is Mark. THAT guy needs everything he says subtitled -- I've been around the world, all over the US and can (if in English) understand 99% BUT Mark is so country, . . . .

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
What drives me nuts is one program I can watch and hear with the volume on 10 and another one I still can't understand with the volume on 90.

And yet, 99% of the commercials are understandable without subtitles. Even during those volume-on-10 programs.

Of course, when they come on during volume-on-90 programs, the neighbors at the end of the street hear them clearly.

Long gone are the classical stage actors who were taught diction and voice projection. I have to have subtitles too. During Letterkenny or similar shows with lightning fast dialog I find myself reading the show instead of watching it.

Our TV is pretty central in the house & kids' rooms close by.
Subs make a big effort in not needing to raise the volume to the point of waking the kids.
Add in catching background dialog that I've missed on familiar shows/movies.

I just don't want the descriptive text of what song/music/background noise is happening.
I just want audio subs without being told that a car door closed, or 'brooding music'.

Pretty interesting, my wife and I both put sub titles on everything and have often wondered why we can never hear the dialogue. We’re both in our mid 30s and have fine hearing so this was pretty neat to see. Still frustrating as hell to have any kind of action at a reasonable volume in the house only to have basically all dialogue silenced. I typically just hang on to the remote and crank the shit up and down as I watch.