With or Without Subtitles?

[Garrett]

With. I got into the habit while working nights. I generally kept the volume low enough that I could barely hear what was being said. Now, it's just habit.

 

[nevermore]

I never said I had trouble hearing the show. I said it is sometimes difficult to understand what is being said. Either through characters mumbling, talking to fast, or some other reason it's sometimes difficult to understand what is being said, not to hear what is being said.

Perhaps I should have been more clear about that.

Have you tried adjusting your sound settings to favor the dialog over the background and such? I have pretty piss-poor hearing, and sometimes deep voices over ambient sound or music with a lot of bass just fades together, but with the settings right, I can make out about 99% of what's said. If I miss something, I just go back and turn on the subtitles, assuming it seems important or interesting enough to bother. I don't like them in general though; I'd rather be looking at the picture as the filmmaker intended, and not reading the script. The exception being that obviously subtitled foreign-language films are preferable to dubbed ones.

 

[Harvey]

However, I do find them distracting so I don't use them unless necessary...never put them on for Dexter, for instance. (Not even sure Dexter has them.)

I was wondering about that. I've noticed that most Showtime DVDs (including Dexter and Californication) have closed captioning, but not subtitles. It's a little annoying when I'm watching those programs with my parents, as they don't hear as well as I do.

 

[Mr Light]

Have you tried adjusting your sound settings to favor the dialog over the background and such?

How exactly would one do this? I never really followed what bass and tremble and so-on meant...

 

[LeahBoBo]

I prefer to watch without, but if an actor is mumbling his/her lines and they're undecipherable, then I'll play the scene with subtitles on so I can make out what they're saying.

 

[propita]

I've tried dialog over music, but it doesn't work for me. I have excellent hearing, unless there's background noise, like a heater, fan, or ac. And in Fresno, one of those is usually on. Yet I'm the one who hears the cell phone ringing in another room.

And actors (or the characters) DO often mumble, imo. No courses in enunciation and pronunciation.

 

[Commander Vaughn]

I never said I had trouble hearing the show. I said it is sometimes difficult to understand what is being said. Either through characters mumbling, talking to fast, or some other reason it's sometimes difficult to understand what is being said, not to hear what is being said.

Perhaps I should have been more clear about that.

Have you tried adjusting your sound settings to favor the dialog over the background and such? I have pretty piss-poor hearing, and sometimes deep voices over ambient sound or music with a lot of bass just fades together, but with the settings right, I can make out about 99% of what's said. If I miss something, I just go back and turn on the subtitles, assuming it seems important or interesting enough to bother. I don't like them in general though; I'd rather be looking at the picture as the filmmaker intended, and not reading the script. The exception being that obviously subtitled foreign-language films are preferable to dubbed ones.

I never really tried messing with any settings. I've been using subtitles for so long I never really considered trying to adjust settings or anything.

Maybe I'll give it a try.

 

[Amaris]

I never said I had trouble hearing the show. I said it is sometimes difficult to understand what is being said. Either through characters mumbling, talking to fast, or some other reason it's sometimes difficult to understand what is being said, not to hear what is being said.

Perhaps I should have been more clear about that.

I know what you mean. I can hear my TV even on "1" as well, but sometimes the show has background music too loud, or they mumble, or it's louder and then so soft it's hard to hear what they're saying. This is particularly so when watching movies. These movies were made for a big screen with huge surround speakers. If you have a normal TV like mine, the speakers don't produce the same inflection and tone on quieter moments that a high end theater speaker would, and so it's not quite as adept at grabbing the quieter words.

When I watch foreign films, subtitles are on. When I watch action movies, I keep the subtitles on there, too. Same for "talkies".

J.

 

[Daneel]

Unless it's a foreign film, no, I never use subtitles.

 

[Michael Chris]

I could hear my old TV on 0 or mute.

 

[Witterquick]

Only when I'm eating chips or nuts and can't hear.

 

[OmahaStar]

Depends on what I'm watching. Generally if it's not American English, I will. I also put them on when I'm watching Doctor Who dvds - they have text commentaries, in addition to the audio commentaries. When the "normal" audio plays, I have the text commentary on, and while listening to the audio commentary (or commentaries), I play the normal subtitles.

Also, if actors have thick accents, I'll put em on.

Or, if it's one of Christopher R. Mihm's movies. Not only do the subtitles include the dialog, they also have extra ... fun ... content. Must be seen to be appreciated.

 

[BigFoot]

I do not use subtitles, and English isn't even my first language. Subtitles over here are actually one of the reasons why I don't go to the theatres much... the subtitles just bug me because they're usually done pretty badly.

 

[CommodoreKong]

If it's foreign language I'll watch it with subtitles unless I'm too tired to do a lot of reading.

If it's English language I'll turn on subtitles if I'm eating something crunchy and it's hard for me to hear the dialog.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I watch with subtitles occasionally like if the material is dense sometimes because I find when I read it in addition to listening it's easier to focus on it or absorb it all. Maybe that's just me being scatterbrained or ADD or whatever that it helps.

 

[zakkrusz]

Subtitles are too distracting and I read at a snail's pace. I only use them as a last resort like if it's a foreign film and then only if the dub was awful or nonexistent. I need the pause button a lot.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I actually can understand most accents easily regardless of how thick they are, so I don't really use subtitles unless it's simply not in English at all. The only exception is a slang term that I'm not familiar with and even then it's more of not understanding the context rather than not hearing the actual word...

"I dunno, mate. It's cobblers, really."

Um, okay...my definition of cobblers is a bit different. It usually involves a fork and lots of napkins...

 

[nevermore]

Have you tried adjusting your sound settings to favor the dialog over the background and such?

How exactly would one do this? I never really followed what bass and tremble and so-on meant...

Bass and treble. Bass is the low-frequency sounds like the background thrumming of the warp engines in TNG, treble is the higher- frequency sounds usually including dialog, basically. Most modern TVs have several different pre-set options for sound mixing in the settings menu. You can also adjust the various registers manually. Just play around with it until it sounds right. I suggest you look up your TV model's user manual online as they generally have some specific instructions fro adjusting the sound.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I could hear my old TV on 0 or mute.

I take it you had Telescreen from 1984?

 

[Michael Chris]

I could hear my old TV on 0 or mute.

I take it you had Telescreen from 1984?

I don't know what that is. But, no. It actually worked on several different TVs. The main one was a Samsung produced in the early to mid 90s, I believe.