Sunday, April 6, 2008

Subtitled

Tonight we were watching a Discovery Channel show about the ten greatest discoveries in Egypt. It was pretty fascinating, but what makes me post about it is the shows use of subtitles.

Subtitles were used with about half of the experts that were interviewed. The thing that killed me was that these experts were speaking English. While some had heavier accents, none of them were hard to understand - if you paid attention. This isn't the first time I've seen this. More and more shows are subtitling English speaking people.

What the hell? Have we come to such a point of laziness/ignorance that we can't tolerate people speaking accented English? Maybe the problem is today's audience can't be bothered to pay attention.

Maybe what irritates me the most is that I found myself reading the damned subtitles even though I can understand the person fine. I don't know, maybe I'm just irritable tonight...

17 comments:

mediamovers said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Roland Deschain said...

Dear blog spammer- perhaps it would help if you actually read his post. Sange-Diver was not arguing open captioning or closed captioning or EVEN the option for English Subtitling for Hard of Hearing and Deaf people.

He's arguing that subtitling English speaking people who have an accent during a show that is NOT OTHERWISE SUBTITLED is fairly retarded.

Apparently although it helps "in learning & improving the literacy levels" it doesn't help in comprehending the content and point of someone's writing.

mediamovers said...

Dear Spammer thanks for your comments

Subtitling shows in same language (irrespective of speakers having accent/or not) is beneficial to people with low literacy level & hard of hearing.

Sangediver said...

Since I removed the original post with Mediamovers spamming URL. I thought I'd repost the original comment, so Roland's makes more sense:

mediamovers said...

Subtitling often helps hard of hearing/deaf population to access television/film content.

It also helps in learning & improving the literacy levels.

Sangediver said...

And now my response:

MediaSpammer,

Roland is a regular poster, which if you weren't using a bot of some sort and actually saw other posts you would know.

How exactly is subtitling of value to someone of "low literacy level"? Wouldn't it be easier for such a person to listen to what the person is saying instead of reading it? If the person is hard of hearing, then wouldn't the whole gorram show would be subtitled?

Way to miss my point...

mediamovers said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sangediver said...

And again the response without the spamming URL:

mediamovers said...

*We didnt spam with url. That was posted for information.

*How exactly is subtitling of value to someone of "low literacy level"?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/same-language-subtitling.html

Perhaps Blogs too require "subtitles" for comprehending the content.


To which I respond:

Posted for information huh? Funny how this "informational site" is about your company that hires out to subtitle things. Hmmm....

In any case, I can concede the point of the low literacy thing for a show.

However you're still missing the point, I would understand if the whole show was subtitled. That wasn't the case (now pay attention here) it was only a few of the people being interviewed.

mediamovers said...

thanks for conceding the point.

Partial subtitling is common with broadcasters who have their own internal policy as you have for your blog.

Url was posted for information as many people are less informed & often contact us for more info.

mediamovers said...

It wasnt spamming as explained

Thanks for "admitting" our post though

Sangediver said...

DOoesn't change that this "internal policy" is retarded, which was my original point.

And thank you for admitting you spammed my blog with your URL.

mediamovers said...

DOoesn't change that this "internal policy" is retarded, which was my original point.


Its all about how one interprets.. someone might interpret likewise about your "internal policy"

Sangediver said...

And they'd be free to post about it without me spamming their site with whatever business I may be in.

mediamovers said...

That sounds like a biblical revelation.

Sangediver said...

??????

Sounds like it's a slow night in the Subtitling Business...

mediamovers said...

we hope to learn Scuba soon :)

Sangediver said...

You're the type of person that always needs to have the last word aren't you?

mediamovers said...

last subtitle...maybe?