BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?

Subject: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Kampervan
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 12:49 PM

I know that regional accents are part of the rich diversity of our culture, but I do get a bit annoyed when, on TV, you get programmed sub-titles for a contributor from Asia or Africa who is speaking perfectly comprehensible English, whereas we're supposed to understand an interviewee from somewhere in the UK, speaking with a broad, unintelligible dialect, e.g.(but not exclusively) - a Brummie, with no help whatsoever.

I don't want to upset everyone from Birmingham, that was just the latest example of a very broad, difficult to follow, accent.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 01:12 PM

Well I'm quite hard of hearing, wearing hearing aids, and what gets my goat most of all is the awful sound quality on some otherwise gripping dramas. There's mumbling and muttering, quite often exacerbated by "dramatic" background music. I've abandoned more then one drama series in my time over this. I've also had to abandon a couple of phone calls to utilities because of exceptionally rich regional accents, one from a Geordie and one from someone in the subcontinent. I suppose the Beeb et al. do have tricky decisions to make at times as to whether to use subtitles.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 01:18 PM

There is a button to access subtitles on my remote control. Surely this is a standard accessory?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 01:21 PM

The button is actually labelled "Help"; it offers subtitles as an option.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 01:47 PM

That isn't what Kampervan means, Michael. This is about the occasional subtitles that the channel puts up for everyone when they adjudge that the speech needs interpreting, whether you've got the main ones turned on or not.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 02:15 PM

Yes, I got that Steve. But you could have surely solved the problems described in your previous post, 4 back, simply by accessing the ones via the "help" button, whatever the inaccessible dialect being perpetrated on screen, even if they hadn't seen fit to include them 'at source'.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 05:55 PM

I remember having trouble understand Prudie and Judd in the original Poldark series, but after a few episodes I understood them. I have no trouble with their accents in the recent series. Either their accent is less strong or I've retained my ability to understand them. I think MGM -Lion's suggestion is a good one until your ears adapt.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 07:38 PM

Well I struggle with subtitles. My mum is extremely deaf and watches telly with her hearing aids out (because my dad's telly in the next room is so loud) and the subtitles on, volume right down. I just can't get used to it. I need the sound up to get the atmosphere, and, try as I might, I can't follow what goes on if I'm reading the captions at the bottom. I suppose practice would help. We went to see Carmen last week. There were English surtitles projected above the stage. It took me five minutes to decide to ignore them, sit back, and enjoy the production. I couldn't make out the words (next to impossible even if the damn thing's in your own language anyway),but I knew the plot and the tunes so I was very happy.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 08:10 PM

I watched "Lawless" the other night.

Set in the prohibition era - deep country bootleggers versus corrupt law enforcement.

Great entertainment, even if the dialogue was completely incomprehensible in many scenes...


Btw.. the most impenetrable accent I encountered recently was a BT customer service worker,
located somewhere in a call centre in South Africa.

I really struggled to understand a word...

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 04:29 AM

I rarely find that I need any English speech subtitled even in very strange variations,my bugbear is the telephone. Phones have a limited frequency range and lose for me some of the tones that help me understand what is being said.The other problem is of course seeing the face of the speaker,looking at a face you can see without realising it many clues such as emotion,all the little things that help you understand what is being said, and whether the speaker means what they said.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 05:08 AM

weem just a konfoosed in the Black Cuntry - ah kant tell wot them brummies am saying..............

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Kampervan
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 05:24 AM

Yeah, yeah, yeah I wondered how long it would be - I didn't mean to single out Brummies, I can understand most of them. It was just that that was the last example that I couldn't quite get.

My point was that I think that the BBC is being a bit insulting to the overseas speakers - many of whom speak better english than I do - when they put the subtitles on.

Some of my best friends are from Birmingham....... I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 05:38 AM

Steve: I do appreciate your problem; but with a bit of practice one can, I find, master the technique of flicking eyes between the action & the caption, just as an experienced driver can monitor both the road and his instrument panel, esp his speedometer.

May be something to do with my having become an aficionado of French & Italian cinema in the mid-1940s (the Carné & De Sica period) & so getting early accustomed to watching the film & following the subtitles simultaneously.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 07:44 AM

Back in the early 1970s.. Late night BBC2 European 'art' movies
when we were 13 years old desperately looking for any nudey ladies on the telly
set me up for a lifetime's appreciation of subtitled movies....😜

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Stanron
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 10:14 AM

I have two remotes, for my TV and my monitor. Both have a button marked 'subtitle'.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST, MikeL2
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 10:40 AM

Hi Steve

You and I share the same problems. I am " hard of hearing" but I cannot follow programmes if I use the sub-titles button on the TV. I too wear hearing aids but I find when watching TV the background soundtracks are increased and tend to drown out the dialogue.

Mrs Mike is not deaf ( thank God) and so we can usually hit a happy medium where I tell her to put the sound level OK for her and I adjust the sound volume on my hearing aids to suit me. Not perfect but works OK.

As it happens I am going in for a hearing test next week and I will try to get them to show me the aids that are supposed to let you tune out sounds you don't want.

Mine at the present are the standard National Health issue. I have tried others that made huge claims and cost even huger prices !!!

As a general point do others here find that in music programmes the backing musicians tend to drown out the vocalists?? Adjusting the volume on my hearing aids tends to increase the backings making the situation even worse.
I do take the point of this thread though and agree that the use of subtitles is not consistent in the way they are used to those who don't use the button.

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 02:01 PM

I often use the subtitles at night. It's not uncommon for me to have some (often detective, Marple, Poirot, etc. and nothing musical) program on tv while playing electic mandolin or guitar with my headphones on.

I'm very poor at for example trying to listen to a CD and even say trying to type a post here - one of the two has to give way for the other but this playing while following tv mostly by subtitles seems to be quite easy for me.

My father uses a hearing aid and that can cause different problems at home. He can have TV on below my own hearing level or blazing out depending on whether he is wearing it and the volume it is at.

I believe his NHS one is tunable so you can boost some frequencies more than others. I also think his has a couple of settings for different situations. The NHS round here have a drop in service where they can be sort of serviced and retuned but my father doesn't like to trouble them.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 02:10 PM

Don't watch television. 99% is junk.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Airymouse
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 02:34 PM

Half the mystery of Mystery Theatre is trying to figure out what the villains have said.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: MikeL2
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 02:36 PM

Hi Guest

<" The NHS round here have a drop in service where they can be sort of serviced and retuned but my father doesn't like to trouble them. ">

We have the same here. I have used it a couple of times and they are very useful. We used to be able to make an appointment but now we can go on a Friday but have to wait our turn. Not usually many waiting especially if we go early.

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 03:49 PM

Mike, good to read you find the service useful even if (as yet and going by a previous post, the technology may not be perfect).

A different thing but not sure my own hearing is "perfect" (allowing for frequency losses ant either end and my mother claims once to have even been able to hear bats as a young girl...) btw. Sometimes what I hear, usually say from my mother from a distance makes little sense.

I don't know if you remember the old Bryant and May matches but one had the three old ladies - something like It's windy today, no it's Thursday - so am I, let's have a cup of tea.

Of course, I blame her diction but I'm not always convinced it's not me.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Gurney
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 08:37 PM

The trouble with sub-titles is..... even if you understand the dialogue easily, you seem to be mostly reading the subtitles instead of watching the action. I have a friend who has a deaf son, and her TV has the sub-titles on permanently, and I find that very distracting.

I do take Steve Shaw's point about the background music, though. Sometimes it overpowers the dialogue enough to be irritating, and I have good hearing. How anyone with partial or tonal loss manages is anyone's guess.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 03:54 AM

This is very worrying. I agree with Bozo.

The other thing that is annoying is that although I watch very little TV, on some evenings there are four or five things I would like to watch - and all are on at 8 pm. I could watch one and record another, and I think there are gadgets that can record up to three things at once, but I cba to program gadgets and three at once is not enough. And the blasted things require a subscription which I refuse to pay. Bah.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: MikeL2
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 05:33 AM

Hi guest

Yes I do remember the Bryant & May matches, and that "joke".

I also remember a TV program - I think it was called On The Bins..?
In this the granddad suffered from deafness and the answer to every question asked of him was " Thursday".

I am in that position. When not wearing my aids (I don't wear them all the time) I create endless humour by my answers to questions asked. Also I often can't make out what my wife is saying if she is not close to me. She says I suffer from "selective hearing".

I find the people are very understanding when I explain that I can't hear well. Also I find that I can sometimes lip-read which helps. To assist in this I sometimes put on the TV with no sound and try to read the lips. I can pick out some obvious words and phrases but I am by no means "fluent".

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: MikeL2
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 05:39 AM

Hi Richard

I agree with your point about programs being run concurrently.

I have acquired over the years several DVD and BluRay recorders and I can and do record up to 4 programs simultaneously.

Truth is though, I don't play many of the recordings.

But that is me.....!!!

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 06:27 AM

Mike, I get the selected deafness one but it;s usually for different reasons. I can for example be over absorbed at rowing with people on Mudcat. Mother might come in and ask say "could you light the fire". I'll later get reminded of what I haven't done. It's not a hearing issue but I'm pretty good at not really listening and giving the yes or no response to please.

Richard, I don't think any of us are big tv viewers but we have a fairly capable recording set up on mythtv. We use an hdhomerun and a TBS card. Homerun is twin channel and TBS is quad but only two are used for recording here. Some would depend on how the multiplexs split but that gives a minimum of 4 channels. If everything fell together, eg. BBC 1 and 2 are on the same multiplex, we could have 8 simultaneous recordings and I just accept myths default of 2 recordings per tuner.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 08:56 AM

Our hard drive digi recorded records 2 programmes at once so that along with the I-Player service and equivalent for the other main channels means we don't really miss anything even if there was lots of things on at once. Plus many of the channels have a +1 hour service which makes it even more flexible.

We used to have to attach a laptop to watch I-player etc on the big TV screen but the latest digi recorder we got has internet facility so we can watch I-player etc directly on the TV ratehr than through a puter.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 12:46 PM

I had neverr heard of mythTV before, but it seems it is not likely to work very happily with the Windows machine running Vista that I have by the TV!

The homerun costs money which I am not prepared to spend for very occasional use.

I imagine I'll just have to miss things.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 01:20 PM

"I also remember a TV program - I think it was called On The Bins..?
In this the granddad suffered from deafness and the answer to every question asked of him was " Thursday"."

Wasn't it 'I Didn't Know You Cared', and it was Uncle Staveley whose response was always, "I heard that - pardon?"?

Very funny series, filmed in Sheffield.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 01:35 PM

Richard. I don't think there is any way round the mythtv backend (the part(s) that do the recordings being Linux. There were attempts to write Widows front ends but I don't know the current status. It is suppossed to be uPNP/DLNA compliant so In Theory there a few off the shelf things than aren't mythtv that can view recordings. I think media player on vista can do that?

XBMC or Kodi as it seems to be called no may be an alternative or perhaps work with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodi_%28software%29

Of course whatever you do, you don't escape some hardware costs and you can't get away from needing a tuner(s). From a Linux perspective, does support a good number incliding cheaper USB dongles but you do need to find out if a particular tuner will work.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 01:38 PM

cough... [in best spiv voice]... Kodi app, and unofficial dodgy streaming add ons..

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: MikeL2
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:26 PM

Hi BWM

You are quite right. Thanks for putting me right !!!

I remember the series well, but obviously not well enough.

Thanks for the heads up.

Cheers Mike

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:44 PM

We get some older UK comedy shows here in the Wash. D.C. area, and I really do need the subtitles. I am 'slightly' hard of hearing but a short glance at the subtitle is all I need to 'see' quaint words I don't know.
However, that doesn't always make things clear, as some local slang is not even obvious in context. I get 98% though...

The real issue with subtitles when you are a bit hard of hearing is when the program is 'live'. There are programs where a human is translating, like at the U.N., and there are those where subtitles are automated with some speech-to-text program...... and those can vary from silly to incomprehensible. The latest was when the subtitle told me one of the characters was in a sigh lum.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:48 PM

As a Brit, I have problems with some US TV. Notably "The Wire". The subtitles for the deaf are no help, as they just spell out the word that you heard, and I still don't know what it means.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST,Ripov
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 12:43 PM

I like the automatic sub-titles: "the Wimbledon Jumping-ships", and especially "Children with lemming difficulties".

What I dislike is "voice-overs", particularly in the news. With our cosmopolitan society many people could follow what's being said in the original language, if they could hear it; but instead there is a spoken translation, drowning the recording, that could well be simply propaganda (or am I just cynical?). Surely subtitles would be more appropriate for this?

And as for the biggest karaoke in the world - why oh why do the BBC put up English sub-titles for the proms? They make no sense at all musically, and English sub-titles don't help you sing along if the aria's not in English!

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 12:52 PM

I dont own a television, but Ifind the birmingham accent a complete disgrace although i can unfortunately generally understand it[ i mean fuck off ,is not difficult to understand] , horrible whining insult to the ears

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 11:37 AM

I don't really have problem with UK progs. Certainly as far as accents go. Mumbling can be more of a problem for eg the Jamaica Inn series last year. Accents were fine but mumbling spoiled it. I also have probs with some US films. Again mostly because of mumbling and once you get atuned to the movie it isn't so bad to make out accents - but there are some actors I really struggle with. There was one film with Jesse Eisenberg that I stopped watching simply because I couldn't understand him. Not just mumbling but mumbling at speed.

Subject: RE: BS: UK TV programmes, sub-titles - needed?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Nov 15 - 11:57 AM

I rarely watch any movie or TV series episode all the way through without needing to rewind occasionally because of unclear dialogue.
It's distracting and takes you out of the imaginary reality of the drama.