Talk:Subtitles

Teletext subtitles

I don't feel this article defines teletext subtitles (as used in the UK and Ireland for a deaf and hard of hearing audience) very well. Is there a possibility of a section in the article more clearly defining this element, as the article is largely dealing with the US equivalent and the existence of subtitles in foreign language film, which isn't the same as subtitling for the deaf (in their native language). I accept there are elements of this in the closed captioning article, but subtitles (as the term is used in the UK and Ireland, and Australia) is *not* closed captioning and no one looking for information on it from those countries will go to a closed captioning article. (The term is probably understood by many nevertheless, but only in reference to US television - many TV shows still have the CC embedded on screen when they are distributed. 194.46.200.76 (talk) 15:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC) Daniel

History of subtitles?

Are there silent films that happen to have subtitles? When have subtiles been in use first? --Hhielscher 23:12, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

There are silent films released in modern times with new subtitles, but I doubt it was used much back in the days, since it would have been easier to produce new intertitles, adapted for a foreign audience. (Which I believe was what was generally done...) 惑乱 分からん 18:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

What does this mean?

A few basic rules can be followed:

• three seconds are needed to read a line,
• a single subtitle showing should not exceed two lines, and
• a line of subtitles should not exceed 37 characters.

Of course the rule to exceed 37 characters can be followed. Similar rules to exceed 36 or 38 could also be followed. The statement "the rule to exceed ___ characters can be followed" is very uninteresting.

It seems obvious that someone wanted to say that these rules *are* being followed, not just that they *can* be followed, but they didn't have a reference and couldn't name the organization which follows the rules.

Can anyone fix this up before I delete it? Ken Arromdee 02:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Reading speed rules depend on target audience and conventions in each country; the two-line limitation is also not universal; and the 37 character limitation refers only to subtitles for the non-proportional teletext format. If a modern, smaller propotional font is to be used for the subtitles, you may very well fit 45-50 characters on each line.Consequently, I've removed these "rules" and have changed the whole chapter into a short decription of the subtitling process.Thomas Blomberg 14:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. The 37 character limit is interesting. Although as correctly stated, 37 characters is an absolute limit for Teletext subtitling (which is limited to 40 characters a row - and three characters are used for control characters on a subtitle), many subtitle files are prepared to this limit - regardless of presentation mechanism. The reason why there are only 37 characters on a row is to ensure a wider compatibility of the subtitle file. Authors who create wider rows (i.e. more characters) will create two problems. A) readability... B) the files will need to be re-authored for Teletext use (which is **still** the predominant usage in Europe). JohnBirch 09:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Ripping of subtitles

At the end of the article we have a list of software for ripping subtitles from DVD's, followed at the bottom of links to websites that do file sharing of ripped subtitles. As distribution of ripped material is a clear violation of copyright in every country (except perhaps in Canada), and as Wikipedia otherwise is very concerned about copyright issues, I definitely don't think the external links should remain, and even the list about ripping software is questionable - especially as the whole issue about ripping isn't addressed at all in the article itself. There could possibly be a separate article regarding the issue of subtitle ripping, or the subject could be included in the existing article about ripping. This article could then have a "see also" that links to that article. What do you think? Thomas Blomberg 02:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

in Subtitles vs. dubbing

Meanwhile, moviegoers in countries where many popular films are foreign-language imports tend to be more used to dubbing, and often prefer it.

Here in sweden we always use subtitles, and the majority of the films are foreign country produced. _→AzaToth 13:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

That whole chapter needs a rewrite, as it's both confusing, illogical and wrong. Thomas Blomberg 15:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Uhm, in Flanders and the Netherlands most of what we watch on television is from the USA or United Kingdom, and that pretty much goes for the movies in the cinemas as well. They are almost always subtitled. (The fact that this place is crawling with Dutch and Flemish illustrates that :-) ).Evilbu 20:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Reference to British terminology

"In British English "subtitles" usually refers to subtitles for the hard-of-hearing (HoH), as translation subtitles are so rare on British cinema and TV; however, the term "HoH subtitles" is sometimes used when there is a need to make a distinction between the two." In the UK "subtitles" can refer to either for the hard of hearing or for translation purposes. I've never heard the term "HoH subtitles". I think this bit should be deleted. (The above was added by unregistered Lost4eva at 10:47 on 30 March 2006)

"HoH subtitles" is a term frequently used within the UK subtitling industry whenever you need to distringuish between those and "translation subtitles" (which is the other term often used).Thomas Blomberg 15:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Humorous use of subtitles

Thoroughly Modern Millie, the Broadway musical, uses English surtitles/supertitles for the Chinese-speaking characters, with great humour value, occasionally swapping over to Chinese when characters unexpectedly speak English. It seems to be missing from the list. (Adding this to the talk page because I am an unregistered nobody and don't trust myself to edit the main page correctly; also, there might be a better place for this.) debbiep 192.67.248.92 01:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

In "Subtitles as a source of humor" should be Annie Hall, where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are speaking and their true thoughts are rendered as subtitles. It is an example far more important than most reviewed here. I'll add it. Nazroon 14:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Links removed

I've removed all the external links from this article, except for the BBC news story. After going through them, they all appeared to be either links to directories of illegally distributed subtitles (which we definitely should not be linking to, as the external link guidelines make clear), or spam links to sundry software packages and companies. If you can make an actual case for including a link, I'm quite open to putting it back, but pretty much all of these links seem to be debris accumulated over time. --Slowking Man 17:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

And how do you know if they are illegal if they only "appear" to be illegal? Ripping subtitles (or creating them) and sharing them through internet is illegal? And how is suppose to be a legal web page of subtitles? Please, answer because you have deleted very useful information without strong arguments. --MichaelPalin 08:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Unless the source is given explicit permission by the copyright holder (usually the production studio), distribution of the material is copyright infringement, as is creating new subtitles (which would be a derivative work). --Slowking Man 07:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

You are referring to the legality of subtitled that are recorded on the product itself. Text file subtitles are a separate product (and are not really bound with any other products) and you are in fact watching two separate products projected on the same surface. Ergo, text file subtitles are perfectly legal. --213.219.106.76 13:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

No, text subtitles that are a translation of the dialogue are still a derevative work (translation) of the original material, for which the studios hold the copyright. Taric25 23:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Multiple subtitles

I think that I once saw, possibly in "Good morning, Vietnam", or some other movie about Vietnam, old movie clips with three or four different language captions used simultaneously. Has this been common somewhere? Anyone else knows anything about it? 惑乱 分からん 18:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

In Finland, cinematic releases of foreign movies usually have “open” subtitles in two different languages: Finnish and Swedish. Typically, two subtitle lines are used: Finnish on the upper row and the corresponding text in Swedish on the lower row.

The basis for this practice is that Finland is constitutionally a bilingual country; the official “national languages” being Finnish and Swedish. Having two subtitle languages on films shown in movie theaters allows serving the Swedish-speaking minority (about 5.5% of population) without having to print and circulate separate copies for them alone.

The same practice does not carry on to the television, though. On Finnish tv channels, there is typically only a single subtitling language visible to the viewer at any given time. Depending on the broadcast method and the broadcaster, it might be possible for the viewer to change the subtitling language with his remote, though.

Finns generally regard dubbing as something that is only suitable for preschoolage children – those that cannot yet be expected to read. For all other age groups, dubbing is usually viewed as something of an intellectual insult: a practice that demeans the artistic and cultural integrity of the original production by depriving the viewer of the original voice acting and dialogue. — Jukka Aho 02:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Subtitle (captioning) & Closed captioning

WikiProject Filmmaking and WikiProject Deaf are already a part of Subtitle (captioning) & Closed captioning , however, these two articles really should be merged. Maybe WikiProject Filmmaking and WikiProject Deaf can work together to merge them. Taric25 08:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There is more discussion at Talk:Closed captioning#Merge. – gpvos (talk) 17:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

POV in form vs meaning

“Unfortunately, especially for commercial subtitles, the subtitler often interprets what is meant, rather than translating how it is said, i.e. meaning being more important than form.”

“Fortunately, ”

This is not appropriate because of the NPOV guideline. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.227.238.221 (talk) 06:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

Yes, I agree. They’re just different subtitling styles for different audiences. Whoever wrote that passage seems to be an advocate of the fansub style subtitles but neither subtitling style is inherently better than the other – both have their downsides.

“Unfortunately” and “fortunately” should be removed but the main bulk of the text that describes the differences between these two styles could remain, in my opinion. — Jukka Aho 02:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed “Unfortunately” and “fortunately” per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Taric25 17:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Subtitles in main image

The spanish subtitles in the image are grammatically incorrect. It should read "...espero que a usted le gusten mis subtítulos." Nothing important, but is a little annoying to see that kind of error (although in a foreign language) in an encyclopedia. Nazroon 15:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

That's what it says. Taric25 03:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks a little silly. There's no other image to use? (On the other hand, I guess it serves its purpose...) 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 10:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The license is stupid also, and is technically being violated here, though his description would probably make the violation legally indefensible (Also the fact that he likely created the violation himself). Either way, it's basically an Old BSD-style license (With a "You have to ask me, too" clause. A bit over-encumbered for such a low-quality production. I suggest replacing it, which should be easy enough. 221.186.244.121 08:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:Free Subtitles.PNG is an image I freely licensed that complies with policy, under {{Attribution}}, per commons:Commons:Licensing, and commons:User:O, the admin who violated policy by speedily deleting it after discussing it for less than 24 hours, per commons:Commons:Deletion guidelines, at the village pump, also violating policy per commons:Commons:Village pump, undeleted it by consensus at commons:Commons:Undeletion requests/Archive/2007-10. Contrary to User:CommonsDelinker, the image contains no “porn”.

In addition, I changed the wording of the license for clarity. I do not require permision for re-use, however, as a courtesy, I would appreciate it. Taric25 (talk) 09:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The image is now a Television Portal Selected picture. Also, my license requires attribution as specified on the image description page. Please do not confuse this with promotion, as removing the link is copyright infringement. Thank you. Taric25 (talk) 20:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Leet Haxors

There is an internet series called 1337 Haxxors ethat has subtitles in leet. Can someone add a reference to them? -- NaBUru38 22:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

If it is noteable to subtitles as a whole, then you may add it. Othewise, it is better to add it to 1337 with a wikilink to Subtitle (captioning). Taric25 23:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

"Research" spam

I've removed the "New technology & Research" section twice now, with a clear description why: the two links seem like spam to me. The first one is a page without any real content: the article section is empty, the links page is broken and many pages have "Untitled document" as title. This has been like this for a long time now. The second link points to a commercial company offering some service - it has no useful content except for a "we do subtitles, hire us" message. The section containing this spam has been added by someone yet again, and I'm not going to delete it a third time because I don't want to end up in an endless editing war.

If someone could keep an eye on this that would be nice. 129.125.101.92 18:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Link suggestions

I am a professional translator who has begun to work with subtitling and, after running into many problems, did a fair amount of research on the internet; in the process I came across two really helpful articles and the well-known "Code of Subtitling Practice," the links for which I would like to share on this page if other people also find them helpful. Here are my link proposals:

European Association for Studies in Screen Translation Code of Good Subtitling Practice: http://www.esist.org/Code.pdf

Article on proposed set of subtitling standards in Europe http://www.accurapid.com/journal/04stndrd.htm

A very helpful paper on subtitling practice: http://www.peak-translations.co.uk/ChapterTwo-Subtitling.doc

Adanepst 15:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong link

There are section called "For media" contain a link to DVD subtitles which redirects to the same page, Subtitle (captioning). --166.87.255.131 01:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"chattering" ?

I've seen scores and scores, perhaps hundreds of English subtitles where some background conversations are described as "chattering", which my dictionary defines as "to talk idly or rapidly" --- neither of which refers to just ordinary talking. Are all these subtitle-writers just mindlessly copying each other?! Suggest: "(Sound of people) talking", not "chattering".Jakob37 01:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

For Media Section

Cleaning up disambiguation page links...in the For Media section one of the links just says Cinema, I linked it to "film" for lack of any other idea...is it supposed to link to a description of movie subtitling or is the link to the movie entry acceptable? Thanks!! Legotech (talk) 08:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Subtitle formats

More software subtitle formats: http://www.urusoft.net/products.php?cat=sw Visor (talk) 12:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

These are just the formats that subworkshop handles. Many important formats are missing, e.g. MPEG-4 Timed Text or all bitmap-based formats. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.162.31.172 (talk) 20:14, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Lead picture and self-promotion

Ad. diff. The license of the picture requires Taric's name and link to his website, but both of them are non-notable for the subject and thus these informations should be deleted from the article. Is it a sneaky spam? For further discussion, go to Wikipedia_talk:Spam#Image_copyright_&_spam. Visor (talk) 18:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Just a question

In the table section where notated that subtitles may be "Editable" Hard subs are listed as NO, where would not the proper caption be as its partner a "Difficult, but possible"? The same tools that remove logos from video rips are also used by people (myself included) to remove/edit subtitles on VCDs. Lostinlodos (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

No SMIL ?

Why is no mentioning made of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language? for Webcasting products ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.51.28.160 (talk) 08:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Language codes

Is there an extension of ISO language codes for subtitles? For example, how would I tag English subtitles for the hearing impaired? I've seen codes like en-HI or eng_SDH, but is there a standard?--87.162.31.172 (talk) 20:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

[T]he two braces (“{{” and “}}”) are uncommon, since most closed caption identifiers use parentheses (“(” and “)”) or square brackets (“[” and “]”).

Yeah, that struck me as hinky right off the bat, too. I’m sure some of the newer decoders can display curly brackets, but… I’ve never seen them used in a programme. Somebody’s gotta fix that. —Wiki Wikardo 05:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Colours as used in DVB subtitles

This article seems very focussed/structured around production of subtitles. I looked for lists or analysis of the various ways used to distinguish speakers (colours, positioning, naming,...) but can find nothing about the styling of subtitles themselves, or the nontext ways to convey information. The whole thing seems tunnel visioned on the act of converting speech, rather than enhancing the viewer's experience. The word colour/color hardly appears on the page at all. Am I reading the wrong article? Shannock9 (talk) 02:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Repetition

This article to me seems to repeat the same info in lots of diferent places. I think it needs a good copy edit. I am happy to do this, perhaps I should put it in my sandbox so it can be reviewed there? SimonTrew (talk) 16:09, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Sign Language

On UK television, programmes are sometimes broadcast with a presenter simultaneously translating into British Sign Language. I am not sure that this should be included here, since it is not, except in the broadest sense of the term, subtitling— but perhaps a brief reference would be in order? SimonTrew (talk) 16:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Initial picture- colours of subtitles

Since subtitles (in some countries) use different colours for different characters, can we recolour the second line? I suggest cyan (00FFFF). SimonTrew (talk) 00:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Exceptions e.g. Children movies

The article lists Sweden among other as a country where subtitles are used, which is usually the case, however, movies targeting children such as cartoons and similar are always dubbed or have at least a dubbed alternative to the subtitled one. Perhaps this should be mentioned in the list? Daniel 83.254.131.36 (talk) 20:35, 13 April 2009 (UTC)