Support NeoGAF

[Polioliolio]

I've been watching a lot of movies this summer, on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and have been watching with the subtitles turned on due to the noisy air conditioner that'll run periodically, and what I've noticed is that the large majority of these subtitles/closed captioning are just horribly made and completely off track from the words on screen, even riddled with occasional typos.

Anyone else notice this?

It reminds me of watching DVD rips sold by market vendors when I was vacationing in Thailand.. It's as though a foreign, non native-English-speaker is typing them up by ear.. It's really terrible.

Right now I'm watching 'Horns' on Netflix. There have already been a number of errors and typos, but I had to pause it to get this down for you as a fair example of what I'm talking about...

The line is - "See, vanity doesn't pay" but the subtitle is "See, that even doesn't pay". Not nearly the worst but an example of the common mistakes in these subtitle tracks.

Are these thrown together by voice recognition software? But if that were true, we shouldn't expect common human typos... Are the subtitle tracks outsourced to foreigners who watch the film and type out the track as they watch?

While I'm talking about it, has anyone else noticed how poor the quality can be on some Amazon video titles?

I was watching the movie 'Tim' with Mel Gibson. Not only was it 4:3 and low resolution, bu there was a frame I managed to pause the film at, which was a black screen with a gear icon that said something like 'codec error'.. It's like they ripped the video straight from VHS with freeware.

Anyway, this stuff feels very unprofessional. I was curious if anyone else had noticed this kind of thing. The subtitles are certainly nothing you would see on a legitimate DVD release subtitle track.

Amazon's subtitles often use [SOUND] in place of actually describing the sound/music/voices on screen. Just hilariously lazy.

 

[jadedm17]

I've noticed that's common on YouTube as well. If you can buy some good headphones: The ps4 gold wireless coupled with a ps4, for example, allow you to get great sound wirelessly; I'm sure there's other options as well.
I live in Florida and the damn bugs outside my house are constantly loud so this is my solution.

 

[params7]

Amazons is specially bad.

 

[Kieli]

Noticed a few mistakes in their subtitles as well (and these aren't even translations, but simply dictations of english movies).

Example: bugs bunny and 1001 arabian nights. a few lines aren't even transcribed correctly (much less typo problems)

 

[Nola]

I've noticed this as well on Netflix and agree it doesn't seem like the type of professional subtitling I would expect from them. :/

 

[BIONIC-ARRRMMM!!]

Extremely rare for me to encounter any issues with Netflix captions (though I found some slapped together subtitles in the past).

Amazon though, completely fucking disgraceful. 80% of the time the subtitles just paraphrase what's being said instead being word for word, yet it still manages to miss critical story info at times. And there's like a 50-50 chance that the subtitles will be out of sync. Just hilariously bad all around. Not to mention their shitty PS4 app UI as well.

 

[aett]

The Amazon subtitles for Gravity Falls are really bad for the first several episodes. There are typos, missing (or oddly combined) lines, and Soos' name is spelled "Zeus". After that, they get a lot better, but there are a few incorrect lines throughout the rest of the episodes. (For example, at one point Candy yells "Death to my enemies!" but the subtitles read "That's for my enemies!")

 

[obin_gam]

Don't know about other countries but Swedish Netflix took help from a warez subtitle crew for the english-to-swedish translations.

 

[FZZ]

Hulu has the best subtitles

 

[JMDSO]

I can deal with somewhat inaccurate subtitles, but subtitles that are out of sync are criminal.

 

[Kard8p3]

idk, in my experience Netflix subtitles are usually good.

Thankfully haven't used Amazon enough to know about their subtitles, but I will talk y'alls word on it lol.

 

[American Eskimo]

Extremely rare for me to encounter any issues with Netflix captions (though I found some slapped together subtitles in the past).

Amazon though, completely fucking disgraceful. 80% of the time the subtitles just paraphrase what's being said instead being word for word, yet it still manages to miss critical story info at times. And there's like a 50-50 chance that the subtitles will be out of sync. Just hilariously bad all around. Not to mention their shitty PS4 app UI as well.

If this is true I'm surprised they haven't been sued for failing to accommodate the disabled

 

[speculawyer]

Amazons is specially bad.

This.

Netflix is OK but Amazon's kinda sucks. And they just don't look good on screen. They need to improve their software.

 

[Noshino]

Do any of them even handle subtitles on their own?

I know they hire 3rd parties for many titles over seas, but I wouldnt be surprised if they did so in the US as well. Wouldnt also be shocked if there were titles for which the subtitles were ready and just handed to them from the studios

 

[HORRORSHØW]

some of them are pretty garbo. i used to do subtitling work for sbs and kbs so i know it can get tedious but some of them seem like they half-assed their way through it.

 

[Ampersands]

I think for the most part, the subtitles I see in Netflix are generally accurate(no experience with Anazob Prime video).

However, sometimes a line of dialogue is left out of the subtitles. I don't rely entirely on subtitles to watch the movie but I do like them for clarity and it's annoying in those instances because that's precisely when I need the subtitles. I've been watching House of Cards and it's happened at least three times now.

 

[Keyser Soze]

 

[Tomita]

Amazon is garbage. Netflix depends on the show. If the first episode has crappy subtitles, the show is always going to have crappy subtitles, but if the show starts out fine it stays fine.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

The subs on Hulu for South Park are often hilariously wrong

My favorite messed up text on Netflix is actually this

 

[Tekomandor]

Netflix subs are ugly and they lack signs (at least, they seem to), but it's streaming video so what are you gonna do.

 

[User 100115]

I once watched Sherlock with English subs on Netflix and wanted to call them up and offer to fix it for free it was that bad.

 

[Burger_Baron]

Obligatory:

 

[sfedai0]

Netflix usually is pretty solid. Maybe some international stuff will be off, but god damn Amazon subs are some hot garbage. Doent help that their UI is so fucking terrible too.

 

[Salsa]

honestly Netflix is surprisingly good at it, for the most part

both with english and spanish subtitles

 

[Pegosaurus]

I've actually never had this problem. Netflix and Amazon have always had very good subtitle quality for the media that I've viewed. Not sure why it would be different between us, but it seems it is.

 

[Trey]

Obligatory:

This is amazing.

 

[Deaf Spacker]

I'm impressed with Netflix subtitles, I've noticed the odd mistake but nothing too bad. Don't they get the subtitles included with the shows that they buy the rights for?

 

[Karkador]

Justice League has a lot of sound effects subtitled as "pew pew"

 

[Noema]

What really grinds my gears is forced Spanish subtitles on Mexican Netflix.

For fuck's sake it's not like they are burned onto the video. Let me turn them off. Over half the catalogue won't let you turn disable them.

 

[Salsa]

thing I appreciate the most with Subtitles is probably the timing, and Netflix is consistently good at that at least.

 

[RoadHazard]

They are generally really good here in Sweden. Maybe because everything is subtitled here anyway.

 

[Nappuccino]

I'm impressed with Netflix subtitles, I've noticed the odd mistake but nothing too bad. Don't they get the subtitles included with the shows that they buy the rights for?

As far as I'm aware, Netflix gets what the companies send them.

 

[Walpurgis]

Obligatory:

This is what you get for trying to get subtitles for your subtitles.

 

[Septimus Prime]

They're bad, but subtitles and closed captioning are almost always bad, so I think I'm just used to it now.

 

[Kyou]

I dont remember the show I was watching on Netflix but the subtitles were paraphrasing what was being said and it was weird.

I think it might have been Bojack?

 

[The_Hitcher89]

Obligatory:

Literally :lol'd

 

[Symphonia]

As if them being incorrect wasn't bad enough, they're so damn big and obnoxious.

 

[uncelestial]

The subs on Hulu for South Park are often hilariously wrong

My favorite messed up text on Netflix is actually this

Holy shit, Leprechaun is a true story!!!11

 

[IISANDERII]

Lol ^

Many times I've encountered missing subtitles when some characters speak in a foreign language. Was watching Defiance and the Russian parts were not translated, which is unacceptable since so much of the film is in Russian.

Also, was watching Mission Impossible 3 and some characters were speaking Italian and the subtitles appearing on screen were German! Wtf hilarious.

Hey has anybody tried the descriptive Audio? I've only seen it with newer Netflix originals like Daredevil and Sense8 and it can be funny too because the amount of shit that needs to be described is overwhelming and the dude can barely keep up. Try watching the opening sequence of an episode of Sense8 with it turned on.

 

[RoadHazard]

As if them being incorrect wasn't bad enough, they're so damn big and obnoxious.

You can customize most things about them in the web interface, and the changes will be reflected in the various apps you might be using. I instantly made them white instead of yellow. Yellow subtitles are bad. BAD.

 

[teruterubozu]

What really grinds my gears is forced Spanish subtitles on Mexican Netflix.

For fuck's sake it's not like they are burned onto the video. Let me turn them off. Over half the catalogue won't let you turn disable them.

Load an empty .dfxp file - all subtitles gone.

 

[Rhomega Beta]

I also noticed this with our DVD of Alien. On the Netflix version of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, the sign in front of the attic is given a Spanish translation. On my DVD of Scrooged, the subtitle "It's an honor to work with the great Frank Cross" (paraphrased) shows up.

 

[storafötter]

It is even worse when you use translated texts on these services (Norway here). A lot of words arent translated, or wrongfully done. A lot of context is lost due to that. Makes me wonder how bad it is with English translation on foreign films/tv shows.

Timing has been fine though.

 

[teruterubozu]

It is even worse when you use translated texts on these services. A lot of things arent translated, or wrongfully done. A lot of context is lost due to that. Makes me wonder how bad it is with English translation on foreign films/tv shows.

I also notice that on Netflix the Close Caption translation is significantly different from regular subtitle translations. I often find the CC translation to be more accurate, at least in a lot of anime.

 

[sangreal]

I've noticed this as well on Netflix and agree it doesn't seem like the type of professional subtitling I would expect from them. :/

They don't give a shit, they were forced to add captioning after an ADA lawsuit

 

[Tugatrix]

Obligatory:

 

[American Eskimo]

They don't give a shit, they were forced to add captioning after an ADA lawsuit

And theyre clearly setting themselves up to lose another lawsuit.

ADA requires equal access to content, not subpar access.

 

[Lumpy Onion]

Overall Netflix subs have been ok for me. Directv though has been a real hit or miss. Started watching Penny Dreadful today using the directv CC and it is some of the funniest shit I've ever seen. I have seen Hong Kong bootleg anime DVDs from the late 90's more understandable than this. The subs were poorly timed, in odd positions, overlapping, and often pure gibberish. At times I wondered if the subtitler even knew the language they were writing out (and then there were bizarre abbreviations everywhere as if they were frantically trying to write lecture notes for some class in code that only they could comprehend). If I absolutely needed it to understand what I was watching I would be kind of insulted because that was shit-tier quality closed captioning.

Whether it's Showtime or Directv to blame I dunno. But it was about as bad as it gets.

 

[Polioliolio]

Overall Netflix subs have been ok for me. Directv though has been a real hit or miss. Started watching Penny Dreadful today using the directv CC and it is some of the funniest shit I've ever seen. I have seen Hong Kong bootleg anime DVDs from the late 90's more understandable than this. The subs were poorly timed, in odd positions, overlapping, and often pure gibberish. At times I wondered if the subtitler even knew the language they were writing out (and then there were bizarre abbreviations everywhere as if they were frantically trying to write lecture notes for some class in code that only they could comprehend). If I absolutely needed it to understand what I was watching I would be kind of insulted because that was shit-tier quality closed captioning.

Whether it's Showtime or Directv to blame I dunno. But it was about as bad as it gets.

This is about why I expect it's outsourced to foreigners who don't really know english. Some of the word choices are just silly.

 

[nitekrawlwer]

With Netflix I find that subtitles randomly stop updating mid show. Is this common for anyone else?