Why do some DVDs replace film element subtitles? (1 Viewer)

[Frank@N]

I just want what was in my theater.

I think that's a reasonable expectation when buying an R1 DVD.

If you watch Hidalgo, you'll see there's like 10+ minutes of pure Arabic.

If this has anything to do with studios releasing DVDs around the world; well, I thought that's what region coding was for.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Region 1 does include Quebec and a whole bunch of people with Spanish as a primary language.

 

[Ruz-El]

Player generated Sub replacment is purly for world distribution. One transfer can be used everywhere, as opposed to creating seperate transfers with burned in subs for different territories. It's more cost effective for the studios to do one transfer with no burned in subs. I don't think original or best elements have anything to do with it. Like it or not, DVD is first and formost about money to the studios.

A good case is "Traffic". The original DVD had player generated subtitles that looked awful. The Criterion went with the original burned in subs, and had a better transfer, and is a much better experiance. Now, those burned in subs a smaller than the palyer generated, but they look a hell of a lot nicer, and are always legibal.

Like others, I always notice player generated subs, and not in a positive way (Passion Of The Christ, besides a shady transfer, has UGLY subtitles throught the whole film). Burned in subs, like in the theaters, are more pleasing, and don't take you out of the theater.

 

[Francois Caron]

Basically, the problem is not with the subtitles themselves, but with the technology used to support them.

A better solution could be included in the upcoming HD-DVD format, a solution that already exists for video files on a computer, where the subtitles are saved using text files instead of image files. The subtitle decoder in the player would then be responsible for properly decoding and displaying the subtitles using the cleanest possible typeface, eliminating pretty much all "ugly subs" complaints.

I would prefer such a solution since it's not unusual for me to be able to watch a movie without ANY subtitles especially if I'm fluent in all the spoken languages. Burnt-in subtitles would simply become a distraction.

 

[John H Ross]

With the greatest of respect, the ability to turn the subtitles off is absolutely irrelevant.

I want the movie presented on DVD the exact same way it was presented at the cinema. Same aspect ratio. Same burned-in subtitles.

God help us if The X-Files is ever tampered with. Those subs (generally indicating time and location) are totally integral to the style of the show.

I'm just glad MGM saw sense and presented The Terminator correctly in R1. I believe the R2 disc is ghastly.

John

 

[John H Ross]

The subs would be cleaner, but would they still be correct? For example, would the subs in Goldeneye be gold coloured like they are at present? Would the subs in the Star Trek movies be in the correct fonts?

John

 

[Jay Pennington]

To clarify some terminology:

There is no such thing as "player-generated" subtitles. The player is not a character generator reading a text file. Each sub is a "subpicture", a two bit image file. A picture in a folder on the DVD. It can be words, rabbits, anything.

Now, some authoring programs allow you to enter text and they use it to generate a subpicture FOR you. That is probably the source for the "ugly" subtitles that are used with annoying frequency. Properly done, a subpicture is created in Photoshop or the like, matching the font and color of what was burned into the theatrical prints. Screen location can be controlled at this stage. The size can as well, although often if you're a stickler about retaining the original size, the text can be hard to read on smaller sets, due to the original size having been intended to be projected across a 50-80ft screen.

So the real problem isn't really the existence of subtitles, but the lazy application of them.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

The flip side of the coin is illustrated by the number of times I have seen people complain about how terrible the opening scenes of a movie look compared to the rest of the film on DVD.

I remember a while ago where someone was complaining about how bad of a transfer Paramount's DVD of "Gunfight at the OK Corral" was. They said it was soft with poor contrast and excessive grain. This was the exact opposite to my own impression of the DVD until I realized that they were perfectly describing the state of the fairly lengthy opening titles which were, by necessity, 2-4 optical generations down from the rest of the transfer. If this kind of quality fall-off occured every time a subtitle showed up, that would be pretty annoying. It's much less of an issue for modern films now that digital compositing can be done for titles and subtitles, of course.

Regards,

 

[Seth--L]

Well, you wouldn't put the entire movie on an alternate stream. What you can do is have alternate angles for at certain moments of the film with subtitles. This is called a "mixed-angle track." It's sorta the same idea as seamless branching. In fact, you'd want to use branching for this.

 

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

i must be the only real big fan of player generated subs. burned in subs can be bad as well, for instance, how about "last samauri" they are so small and white so they tend to blend into the background in some shots. i like what miramax did with both kill bill movies. while they used player gen subs, they are in the bars, and can be used only if you want them.

 

[Jason Seaver]

No, Ryan, I'm with you. I like them in the black area, and on foreign films, especially, the subtitles aren't part of the actual composition, so I see no need to make them mandatory. (Although I do wonder if, during primarily English-language films, the cinematographer and director do think in terms of leaving a space for subtitles when they shoot scenes with dialog in a different language).

Except that (A) seamless branching...isn't, and (B) I seem to recall that when you do multi-angle, all the angles have to share the same bandwidth evenly, so if you've got a movie that's maxing out its bitrate, those subtitled scenes can only use 1/3 of that (assuming English, French, and Spanish versions).

 

[GuruAskew]

Name one movie where something presented as an alternate angle is presented in a quality that is noticeably lesser than the non-angle video. "Mallrats" uses an alternate angle track for video commentary, which lasts for several minutes throughout the movie. One could watch the movie without the alternate angle and a drop in video quality never occurs. It's not as if one angle is eating away at the the other angle's bitrate as opposed to the single angle before and after the segment in question. There's really no room for debate here. Disney has used this method before and unless you have an angle indicator on your DVD, it's absolutely 100% unnoticeable. The "Star Wars" films use this method for the opening text crawl as well. You'd never know it. One 86-second segment of "The Empire Strikes Back" is presented via angles in triplicate (English, Spanish and French) and there is absolutely no loss in picture quality.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Really? I recall reading several reviews of Disney releases of Ghibli [Japanese Animation] films, where Disney used alternate angles for the credits and sequences with in-picture subtitles, which claimed a seriously noticable drop in picture quality. I can't say of my own knowledge, though; I haven't watchd the discs in question.

 

[Tom_Bechet]

I 100% agree with you there.

I can also list Hulk UKR2 as a disc where location caps being substituted with player generated stanard font mess with the film.

I do however see a difference between subs for foreign spoken parts and location caps.

I often switch off any subs for foreign parts on films in spanish, german french etc because I understand the languages, so I get the picture without the subs which in that case are annoying (I understand that not everyone is in that situation and I don't ask for burned in subs to be abolished or anything)

Location caps are entirely different though!

when a caption says e.g.: 11pm Arizona, US

nobody needs player generated subs for that. (if its to avoid souble subtitling)

long story short:
1)location caps always burned in (with the effects and stlye that was used in the cinema)

2)subs for foreign spoken parts: preferably burned in, I can live without) but they should use the DVDformat more as described above to get the fonts used in theatres and so as to still allow player generated subs (if they really have to) but then so that it looks like the original.

HTH and clears up my thoughts on this

 

[Jay Pennington]

The X-Files TV show subs would've been done in the video realm during editing, so they'd be a permanent part of the broadcast masters.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

The drop-off in quality on the Ghibli releases' title sequences was much more due to differences in quality of the film elements used for the different title sequences than it was to the available bitrate due to alternate angles.

Regards,

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Of course, the stuff I watch mostly was never shown in cinemas. Much of the remainder was never shown in cinemas with subtitles. The subtitles, when present, were added to the video releases, to facilitate selling them in the American market. And what of a movie with English dialogue throughout, which was originally shown in Japanese cinemas with subtitles in that language, and then released to american cinemas without them? Do I have to accept this completely irrelevant text, just because it was once exhibited in this way?
I think burned-in subtitles are not necessarily the best way to go, particularly for television programmes and programmes which already have on-screen text [which may be covered up or rendered illegible]. A prticularly nasty case is test on-screen in English, ostensibly being read in another language by a narrator, with subtitles translating what the narrator is actually saying, which is not the same as the text. This is not hypothetical, I own such a thing. Is it really so bad for me to eliminate at least one redundant text item?