Hello, I have people in my life who I care about who are Deaf and hard of hearing, and I want to share Star Trek with them, but I can't because I would be embarassed and they would miss out on a lot of the quality. Why? Because the subtitles on the DVDs for the various TV series are AWFUL. For one thing, they do not contain any information about sound effects even when it is relevant to the story. To make it accessible, it needs say things like "(MEN FIGHTING IN THE DISTANCE)" when Worf and Garak are exploring the Dominion prison asteroid for the first time... and "(BAJORAN PHASER FIRE)" when Odo and his deputies take Kira by surprise by helping to drive off the Dominion occupation... and "(TRANSPORTER BEAM IN CLOSET)" when Brunt appears in Quark's room on Ferenginar. This stuff is integral to the storytelling, and affects the pacing of the drama. We don't get any of this stuff in the subtitles. In many of these cases, all a Deaf person would perceive is a character appears to react to something, and looks toward it, and we don't find out what is going on until (and unless) it subsequently appears on screen. And that's not all. They abbreviate and abridge the dialogue, taking out words, sometimes entire phrases. Even to the point where in the closed captions, DATA USES CONTRACTIONS. The captions are too over-simplified, to the point where they detract from the story. Does anyone know where I can download subtitles which I would not be embarassed to show my friends?
You don't indicate what part of the world you're in, captioning standards differ. I'm in North America, so it's NTSC captioning, which is different than the method used with PAL from what I understand. So I can only speak about NTSC and standards that have been in place since 1973. I'm hard of hearing (always having trouble understanding what people are saying in everyday life), so I always use closed captioning if it's available for a program or film. If a character speaking is offscreen, the captions will often say something like "Man: Hey!" or if it's a character already established in the scene but not on camera at the moment, will be identified by name. Some sound effects are also indicated like door chimes, explosions, even Porthos whining on ENT. The captioning with the Star Trek series in general seems no different than the captioning than I've seen in other programs or major motion pictures. In some cases, the captioning is even better than some films. You might be overcompensating by thinking they're missing more than they are, if you don't have hearing problems yourself. ETA: Also bear in mind that captioning has to deliver the most essential parts of dialogue while keeping up with the action on the screen. It would be impossible to include every sound effect or cough or laugh or grunt and keep pace with the onscreen action.
But Mr. Data does not use contractions (except when he does). But even still... I just watched the Siege of AR-558. Here are my observations. - In this episode, the fidelity of the captions to the actual dialogue was excellent. I was pleased. - The sounds of the Houdinis exploding off screen the first two times, killing Starfleet people, are not indicated in the subs. However in both cases there was a visible flash accompanied by the actors reacting in the direction it came from, so that's okay. - When they are all waiting nervously for the Jem'Hadar to begin their final assault (around 35:15), now we start to run into a bit of a problem. Bill Mumy's character freaks out when he hears the recording of Vic's song on the distance, not knowing what it is. But we get this: | In that small... | What the hell is that? | Shh, listen. | ...park across the way | The children's carousel | The chestnut trees | The wishing well [cut to quark who is elsewhere] | I'll be seeing you | In every lovely summer's day | In everything that's bright and gay | I'll always think of you that way | Your idea? | Yeah, I thought we could all use | a little Vic Fontaine right now. So, at no point is there a music symbol to indicate that the characters are hearing music, and the lyrics are not italicized. Now, I have seen this episode dozens of times, but watching it today for the first time with the sound off, I was actually confused by what was going on and I thought the subs were malfunctioning until I remembered what was going on from previous viewings and from recognizing the lyrics. But if someone is watching for the first time and doesn't know the lyrics, they're not going to know what the fuck is going on until we get Ezri and Bashir having dialogue about it like 45 seconds later. - After the rest of the mines explode in the distance, the characters hear the Jem'Hadar yelling angrily as they press their attack. It's relevant to the heroes emotional state that they can hear the enemy soldiers yelling as they charge. It indicates that some Jem'Hadar survived, and that they are indeed coming and out for blood. But there is no non-aural indication of this until they actually come around the bend on screen. The yelling was also intended to give the impression that there were more of them than the ten or so costumed stunt men we ever end up actually seeing. I argue that the effect is diminished by the crappy subs. - Quark is inside tending to Nog during the fighting... He looks concerned because he can hear the shots outside. But without the sound effects to establish this, it's not necessarily clear. There has never been an establishing shot to demonstrate that the sickbay in the compound is within hearing distance of outside. Something like "(sound of fighting continues outside)" would be super-helpful in this situation. Those are just some examples, and that's from an episode that didn't mess up as badly as most. It's mainly earlier TNG I have a problem with. Later DS9 seems a lot better. But all of it pales in comparison with what I have come to expect from watching contemporary television shows e.g. Castle, Scandal, Revolution, Community. etc. Other shows (e.g. contemporary) do not drop entire parts of phrases out of dialogue. What is the problem with Star Trek?
As another poster said, it depends on what Region you're in (I can only speak for America), but here, you can set your TV (and/or your DVD player) for closed captioning, and those will typically include information such as sound effects, music, etc. You can find this by going into your TV's menu, and picking "audio", then go to the subheading "Closed captions", or "CC options", and do what the instructions say. You can do the same with the menu on your DVD player. I hope that information helps. Personally, I disagree with your view of the CC's included on the DVD's. I actually like the large gold letters used.
Okay, two things. First, obviously I have turned on the DVD captions and these are the captions I am criticizing. Two, the font and color is largely dependent on your individual system and its settings. On mine, both the font color and size are configurable.
Hello, As RandyS implied, you may be watching with the subtitles on, not the closed captioning. This is from the DS9S7D2 DVD (Region 1), title 4. The subtitles at 35:58 read "The wishing well" The closed captions at 35:58 read "<music note> The wishing well<music note> " As the song ends: The subtitles at 36:55 do not display anything. The closed captions at 36:55 display "(distant explosion)". When the Jem'Hadar are still offscreen The subtitles at 37:36 do not display anything. The closed captions at 37:36 display "(distant cries and howls)". I just looked at that section, the rest of it is probably captioned appropriately as well, but I just had a few minutes. Does this make sense? I am watching on a computer and the DVD Player application gives me the option to turn on captioning separate from subtitles, I am not sure how on a regular DVD Player/TV you would do it (except the subtitles are accessible from the DVD menus and remote, but that is not what you are looking for clearly).
There's a difference between closed captioning and subtitles. Subtitles generally only contain dialogue but CC includes sound effects, music, etc.