5 subtitle issues I wish streamers would fix

There are many people that find it necessary to use subtitles when they are watching something on a streaming platform. It can be incredibly hard to use subtitles when watching a live TV event, as the subtitles are naturally going to be delayed. But when you’re watching a movie or a scripted show, the subtitles are loaded in ahead of time, giving viewers a full breakdown of what is happening in the scene they’re watching. The dialogue is often some of the most important parts of a show and movie to understand, so why not understand it better with subtitles?

Subtitles have been around for years, and many people turn them on while they’re watching something at home so they don’t miss any lines of dialogue. Fans of Peaky Blinders who aren’t English know why it’s important to use subtitles — heavy accents can make it hard for general audiences to follow along with what’s going on. But there are some inherent risks when using subtitles that can prove detrimental to the viewing experience.

If you don’t use subtitles often, you might not pay much attention to them during scenes with foreign languages. But for those of us who rely on them regularly, subtitles become a natural guide — something we automatically track during a scene. However, there are some inherent problems with streaming services that make subtitles less effective.

Dialogue can be skipped for no reason

This happens more than I like to admit

There are times when subtitles don’t appear, even when you want them to. As a regular subtitle user, I prefer having them on anytime there’s dialogue. I don’t always need scene descriptions (I can usually see and hear what’s going on) but I do watch a lot of foreign films, so I’m used to reading translated subtitles.

Every once in a while, the characters in a foreign film will speak English. If that’s the case, oftentimes the subtitles just disappear. They aren’t there for large chunks of the English dialogue, as the streaming service just assumes you’re able to follow along. But if I’m watching something late at night and don’t want to wake up others in my room or home, I may have the volume low and I won’t be able to hear that part of the scene.

Subtitles can spoil what’s about to happen

This is a bit of a byproduct, but still

I’m also a horror fan, and I especially rely on subtitles when watching the genre. Whispered dialogue (often during tense hiding scenes) is crucial and easy to miss without them. But subtitles can sometimes spoil the moment. If something is said off-screen, and it’s meant to be a dramatic reveal, the subtitles might give it away too early.

For example, let’s say you’re about to find out who the killer is. This might have been kept a secret for much of the film. But on streaming services, it has happened that any time there is dialogue said by someone not on camera, it will put the name of whoever is speaking in parentheses. This can backfire when a pivotal moment occurs and the mystery is spoiled by reading what happened before seeing it. It’s not often, but it does happen.

AI has taken over the subtitles

It’s hard to blame companies, but c’mon

Credit: Crunchyroll / Pocket-lint

It seems like AI is infiltrating everything these days, most of the time to make processes simpler. But that isn’t always the case, as AI can still show its premature state at the worst times. This includes coming up with blatantly wrong answers if you ask a chatbot a question or not getting any kind of response from a smart speaker assistant when they’re asked for help.

Recently, Crunchyroll — a premiere streaming service for anime — was exposed for using ChatGPT for subtitles. This was shown because the subtitles read “ChatGPT Reads” ahead of German translations. This is hardly something that should be surprising, as it takes a lot of effort to translate entire shows from one language to another. But companies have been doing it for years and relying on something that “might” do it faster can also deliver incorrect subtitles, frustrating any consumer who pays for that service.

Cultural differences don’t always come through

This isn’t subtitles’ fault, but it happens

There is often a debate about whether you should be watching a dubbed version of a foreign language show or movie or if you should listen to it in its native language and use subtitles in your language of choice. My personal preference is to use subtitles in English and hear the dialogue in the native language. That’s because you can hear the inflection in the actor’s voice when they are delivering the lines.

This can get lost in reading subtitles. Oftentimes, they don’t let you know how a person is delivering a line. There are adjectives that are used, but they can’t always convey the emotion. Streaming services, like Apple TV+, may try to go out of their way to overcompensate for this by adding more explanation in the subtitles. But plenty don’t bother and just let you read the dialogue as is.

There isn’t a universal way to display subtitles

I want my preferences saved

Whether you’re using subtitles on Disney+, Netflix, or Apple TV+, they all have different ways to make them look and how to display them. You can have the opportunity to highlight them in a silly color that contrasts the screen if you want. You can also make them larger on some streaming platforms. Netflix has even added in the ability to only have dialogue rather than instructions.

But, the frustrating aspect of streaming is the lack of consistency. There isn’t one way to use subtitles. You also can’t save your preferences in your profile, meaning you may need to turn on subtitles every time you log in to some streaming services. This may be asking too much, but it would be nice to set your smart TV’s settings to a specific one for subtitles and have it used universally throughout all of your streaming services. This might be a pipe dream, but why can’t I dream?