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Subtitles

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For other uses, see Subtitle.
Taric Alani sits in his room, speaking English with Spanish subtitles. He says, "Hello, I hope you like my subtitles." The subtitle reads, "Hola, yo espero que a usted le gustan mis subtítulos

A person speaks English with
Spanish subtitles. The English
sentence is "Hello, I hope you like
my subtitles."

Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language - with or without added information intended to help viewers who are deaf and hard–of–hearing to follow the dialog. Sometimes, mainly at film festivals, subtitles may be shown on a separate display below the screen, thus saving the film-maker from creating a subtitled copy for perhaps just one showing. In the United States, television subtitling for the deaf and hard–of–hearing is closed captioning.

Translation

Subtitles can be used to translate dialog from a foreign language to the native language of the audience. It is the quickest and the cheapest method of translating content, and is usually praised for the possibility to hear the original dialog and voices of the actors.

Translation of subtitling is sometimes very different from the translation of written text. Usually, when a film or a TV program is subtitled, the subtitler watches the picture and listens to the audio sentence by sentence. The subtitler may or may not have access to a written transcript of the dialog. 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. This is not always appreciated by the audience and can be frustrating to those who know some of the language being spoken and the fact that spoken language may contain verbal padding or culturally implied meanings, in confusing words, if not adapted in the written subtitles. The subtitler does this when the dialog must be condensed in order to achieve an acceptable reading speed. i.e. purpose being more important than form.

Fortunately, especially for fansubs, the subtitler may translate both form and meaning. The subtitler may also choose to display a note in the subtitles, usually in parentheses (). This allows the subtitler to preserve form and achieve an acceptable reading speed, by leaving the note on the screen, even after the character has finished speaking, to both preserve form and allow for understanding. For example, the Japanese language has multiple first-person pronouns (see Japanese pronouns), and using one instead of another implies a different degree of politeness. In order to compensate, when translating to English, the subtitler may reformulate the sentence, add appropriate words and/or use notes.

See closed captioning for differences between 'subtitles' and 'captions.

File:Untertitel.jpg
A subtitler uses a computer to produce teletext subtitles.

Some subtitlers purposely provide edited subtitles or captions, to match the needs of their audience, for learners of the spoken dialog as a second or foreign language, visual learners, beginning readers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and for people with learning and/or mental disabilities. For example, for many of its films and television programs, PBS displays standard captions representing speech the program audio, word-for-word, if the viewer selects "CC1", by using the television remote control or on-screen menu, however, they also provide edited captions to present simplified sentences at a slower rate, if the viewer selects "CC2". Programs with a very diverse audience also often have captions in another language. This is common with popular Spanish soap operas. Since CC1 and CC2 share bandwidth, the FCC recommends translation subtitles be placed in CC3. CC4, which shares bandwidth with CC3, is also available, but programs very seldom use it.

Subtitles vs. dubbing and lectoring

The two alternative methods of 'translating' films in a foreign language are dubbing, in which other actors record over the voices of the original actors in a different language, and lectoring, a form of voice-over for fiction material where a narrator tells the audience what the actors are saying while their voices can be heard in the background. Lectoring is common for television in Russia, Poland, and a few other East European countries, while cinemas in these countries show films dubbed or subtitled.

The preference for dubbing or subtitling in various countries is largely based on decisions taken in the late 1920s and early 1930s. With the arrival of sound film, the film importers in Germany, Italy, France and Spain decided to dub the foreign voices, while the rest of Europe elected to display the dialog as translated subtitles. The choice was largely due to financial reasons (subtitling is inexpensive and quick, while dubbing is very expensive and thus requires a very large audience to justify the cost), but during the 1930s it also became a political preference in Germany, Italy and Spain; an expedient form of censorship that ensured that foreign views and ideas could be stopped from reaching the local audience, as dubbing makes it possible to create a dialogue which is totally different from the original.

Dubbing is still the norm and favored form in these four countries, but the proportion of subtitling is slowly growing, mainly to save cost and turnaround-time, but also due to a growing acceptance among younger generations, who are better readers and increasingly have a basic knowledge of English (the dominant language in film and TV) and thus prefer to hear the original dialogue.

In many Latin American countries, local network television will show dubbed versions of English-language programs and movies, while cable stations (often international) more commonly broadcast subtitled material. Preference for subtitles or dubbing varies according to individual taste and reading ability, and theaters may order two prints of the most popular films, allowing moviegoers to chose between dubbing or subtitles. Animation and children's programming, however, is nearly universally dubbed, as in other regions.

In the traditional subtitling countries, dubbing is generally regarded as something very strange and unnatural and is only used for animated films and TV programs intended for pre-school children. As animated films are "dubbed" even in their original language and ambient noise and effects are usually recorded on a separate sound track, dubbing a low quality production into a second language produces little or no noticeable effect on the viewing experience. In dubbed live-action television or film, or in high quality animation, however, viewers are often distracted by the fact that the audio does not match the actors' lip movements; that the dubbed voices seem detached, inappropriate for the character, or overly expressive; and that ambient sounds are usually lost in the dubbing.

Subtitling as a practice

In several countries or regions nearly all foreign language TV programs are subtitled, instead of dubbed, notably in:

In Wales channel S4C provides subtitles in English for Welsh language programs as well as subtitles in Welsh for deaf people. Similarly, in Ireland, RTE One and Irish language channel TG4 provide English subtitles for Irish language programs.

In Wallonia (Belgium) films are usually dubbed, but sometimes they are played on two channels at the same time: one dubbed (on La Une) and the other subtitled (on La Deux), but due to low ratings not much anymore.

In Australia, one FTA network, SBS airs its foreign-language shows subtitled in English.

Same language captions

Same language captions, i.e., without translation, are primarily intended as an aid for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Subtitles in the same language as the dialog are sometimes edited for reading speed and better readability. This is especially true if they cover a situation where many people are speaking at the same time, or speech is very unstructured, as the human brain has difficulty absorbing unstructured written text quickly.

Use by those not deaf or hard-of-hearing

Although same-language subtitles and captions are produced primarily with the deaf and hard-of-hearing in mind, many hearing film and television viewers choose to use them. This is often done, because the presence of closed captioning and subtitles ensures that not one word of dialog will be missed. Films and television shows often have subtitles displayed in the same language, if the speaker has a speech disability and/or an accent. In addition, captions may further reveal information that would be difficult to pick up on otherwise. Some examples of this would be the song lyrics; dialog spoken quietly or by those with unfamiliar accents; or supportive, minor dialog from background characters. It is argued that such additional information and detail will enhance the overall experience and allow the viewer a better grasp on the material. Furthermore, people learning a foreign language may sometimes use same-language subtitles to better understand the dialog while not having to resort to a translation.

Use in Asia

In some Asian television programming, captioning is considered a part of the genre, and has evolved beyond simply capturing what is being said. The captions are used artistically; it is common to see the words appear one by one as they are spoken, in a multitude of fonts, colors, and sizes that capture the spirit of what is being said. Languages like Japanese also have a rich vocabulary of onomatopoeia which are used in captioning.

East Asia

In some East Asian countries, such as China and Japan, captioning is common in some genres of television. In these languages, written text is less ambiguous than spoken text, so there is a distinct advantage to captioning. Furthermore, the various spoken dialects of Chinese are mutually incomprehensible, but are all written identically; captioning means someone who only understands Mandarin could watch a show filmed in Cantonese. Captioning is also common in taped interviews during news broadcasts, as accents in Asian languages can be difficult to understand.

South Asia

In some South Asian countries, such as India and Pakistan, Same Language Subtitles (SLS) are common for films and music videos. In India, 84% of people early & non- literate.[1] With SLS, "[r]eading becomes automatic, subconscious, in everyday entertainment."[2] SLS are karaoke-style subtitles, "highlighted in perfect timing, as they are sung [or spoken]. This association of the spoken and written word is a proven method to improve reading skills."[3]

Creation of subtitles

Today professional subtitlers usually work with specialized computer software and hardware where the video is digitally stored on a hard disk, making each individual frame instantly accessible. Besides creating the subtitles, the subtitler usually also tells the computer software the exact positions where each subtitle should appear and disappear although for most cinema film and in some countries also for electronic media, this task is traditionally done by separate technicians. The end result is a subtitle file containing the actual subtitles as well as position markers indicating where each subtitle should appear and disappear. These markers are usually based on timecode if it is a work for electronic media (e.g. TV, video, DVD), and on film length (measured in feet and frames) if the subtitles are to be used for traditional cinema film.

The finished subtitle file is used to add the subtitles to the picture, either directly into the picture (open subtitles); embedded in the vertical interval and later superimposed on the picture by the end user with the help of an external decoder or a decoder built into the TV (closed subtitles on TV or video); or converted to tiff or bmp graphics that are later superimposed on the picture by the end user (closed subtitles on DVD).

Subtitles can also be created by individuals using freely-available subtitle-creation software like Aegisub and then hardcode them onto a video file with programs such as VirtualDub in combination with VSFilter which could also be used to show subtitles as softsubs in many software video players. See also: Fansub

Types

While distributing content, subtitles can appear in one of 3 types:

  • Hard (also known as hardsubs or open subtitles). The subtitle text is irreversibly merged in original video frames, thus these format of subtitles doesn't require any special equipment or software at all. Thus, very complex transition effects and animation can be implemented, such as karaoke song lyrics following, various colors, fonts, sizes, etc. However, these subtitles can't be turned off, because they are just a part of original frame, and it's impossible to do several variants of subtitling, for example, in multiple languages.
  • Prerendered subtitles are separate video frames that are overlaid on the original video stream while playing. prerendered subtitles are used on DVD (though they are contained in the same file as video stream). Obviously, player is required to support such subtitles to display them, and it is possible to turn them off or have multiple languages subtitles and switch among them. On the other hand, subtitles are usually encoded as images with minimal bitrate and number of colors, thus they usually lack anti-aliasing font rasterization. Also, it is hard to change such subtitles, but special OCR software, such as SubRip exists to convert such subtitles to "soft" ones.
  • Soft (also known as softsubs or closed subtitles) are separate instructions, usually a specially marked up text with time stamps to be displayed during playback. It requires player support and, moreover, there are multiple incompatible (but usually reciprocally convertible) subtitle file formats. It's relatively easy to create and change such subtitles, and thus it's frequently used for fansubs. Text rendering quality can vary depending on player, but, generally, it's higher than prerendered subtitles. Also, some formats introduce text encoding troubles for end-user, especially if very different languages are used simultaneously (for example, Latin and Asian scripts).

In other categorization, digital video subtitles are sometimes called internal, if they're embedded in a single video file container along with video and audio streams, and external if they are distributed as separate file (that is less convenient, but it is easier to edit/change such file).

Comparison table
Feature Hard prerendered Soft
Can be turned off/on No Yes Yes
Multiple subtitle variants (for example, languages) No Yes Yes
Editable No Hard, but possible Yes
Player requirements None Majority of players support DVD subtitles Usually requires installation of special software, unless national regulators mandate its distribution
Visual appearance, colors, font quality High, depends on video resolution/compression Low Low to high, depends on player and subtitle file format
Transitions, karaoke and other special effects Highest Low Depends on player and subtitle file format, but generally poor
Distribution Inside original video Separate low-bitrate video stream, commonly multiplexed Relatively small subtitle file or instructions stream, multiplexed or separate
Additional overhead None, though subtitles added by re-encoding of the original video may degrade overall image quality, and the sharp edges of text may introduce artifacts in surrounding video High Low

Categories

Subtitles in the same language on the same production can be in different categories:

  • Forced When a foreign production is dubbed to the local language, forced subtitles provide only the on-screen text that was not be translated since it was not spoken.

Specific varieties

Closed captions

File:Cc-symbol-small.gif
A commonly-used symbol indicating that a program or movie is closed-captioned.
Main article: Closed captioning

Closed captioning is the American term for closed subtitles specifically intended for people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing. These are a transcription rather than a translation, and usually contain descriptions of important non-dialog audio as well ("Car horn"). From the expression "closed captions" the word "caption" has in recent years come to mean a subtitle intended for the hard of hearing, be it "open" or "closed". 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.

SDH

"SDH" is an American term introduced by the DVD industry. It is an acronym for "Subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing", and refers to regular subtitles in the original language where important non-dialog audio has been added, as well as speaker identification (useful when you cannot tell from the picture alone who is saying what you see as subtitles).

The only significant difference for the user between "SDH" subtitles and "closed captions" is their appearance, as traditional "closed captions" are non-proportional and rather crude, while SDH subtitles usually are displayed with the same proportional font used for the translation subtitles on the DVD. However, closed captions are often displayed on a black band, which makes them easier to read than regular DVD subtitles.

DVDs for the US market now sometimes have three forms of English subtitles: SDH subtitles, straight English subtitles intended for hearing viewers, and closed caption data that is decoded by the end-user’s closed caption decoder.

High definition disc media (HD DVD, Blu-ray disc) uses SDH subtitles as the sole method because technical specifications do not require HD to support line 21 closed captions. Some blu-ray discs, however, are said to carry a closed caption stream that only displays through standard definition connections.

Live subtitles

Same language

Live captioning of news, sports events, and live debates is increasingly common, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a result of regulations that stipulate that virtually all TV eventually must be accessible for people who are deaf and hard–of–hearing.

Specially trained court stenographers using stenotype or velotype keyboards usually produce live captions to display within 2-3 seconds of the representing audio, however, the most recent developments include operators using voice recognition software and revoiceing the dialog. Voice recognition technology has advanced so quickly in the United Kingdom that about 50% of all live captioning is through voice recognition as of 2005.

In order to minimize the unavoidable delay, instead of popping on, live subtitles usually display scrolling.

Live captioning unavoidably contains more errors than timed subtitling, since there is very little time to correct typing errors or mishearings of either the operator or the computer, however, considering viewers who are deaf and hard–of–hearing, the benefits are more important than precise subtitles.

Translation

Live translation subtitling, usually involving simultaneous interpreter listening to the dialog quickly translating, while a stenographer types, is rare. The unavoidable delay, typing errors, lack of editing, and high costs regard very little need for translation subtitling. Allowing the interpreter to directly speak to the viewers is usually both cheaper and quicker, however, the translation is not accessible to people who are deaf and hard–of–hearing.

Subtitles as a source of humor

Occasionally, movies will use subtitles as a source of humor.

  • In Austin Powers in Goldmember, Japanese dialog is subtitled using white type that blends in with white objects in the background. An example is when white binders turn the subtitle "Please eat some shitake [sic] mushrooms" into "Please eat some shit".After many cases of this, Mr. Roboto says "Why don't I just speak English?", in English.
  • In The Impostors one character speaks in a foreign language, while another character hides under the bed. Although the hidden character cannot understand what is being spoken, he can read the subtitles. Since the subtitles are overlaid on the film, they appear to be reversed from his point of view. His attempt to puzzle out these subtitles enhances the humor of the scene.
  • The movie Airplane! and its sequel feature two inner-city African Americans speaking in barely comprehensible jive, with English subtitles. However, the movie viewer can sense that the subtitles do not match the context of the speech; when they talk in sexually explicit slang, inaccurate sanitized text appears below. Read the conversation here [1]
  • The Carl Reiner comedy The Man with Two Brains also features comedic use of subtitles. After stopping Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin) for speeding, a German police officer realizes that Hfuhruhurr can speak English. He asks his colleague in their squad car to turn off the subtitles, and indicates toward the bottom of the screen, commenting that "This is better - we have more room down there now".
  • In the opening credits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail the Swedish subtitler switches to English and promotes his country, until the introduction is cut off and the subtitler "sacked". In the DVD version of the same film, the viewer could choose, instead of hearing aid and local languages, lines from Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 5 that vaguely resemble the lines that are actually being spoken in film, if they are "people who hate the film".
  • In Scary Movie 4, there is a scene where the actors speak in faux Japanese (nonsensical words which mostly consist of Japanese company names), but the content of the subtitles is the "real" conversation.
  • In Not Another Teen Movie the nude foreign exchange student character Areola speaks lightly accented English, but her dialog is subtitled anyway. Also, the text is spaced in such a way that a view of her bare breasts is unhindered.
  • Simon Ellis' 2000 short film Telling Lies juxtaposes a soundtrack of a man telling lies on the telephone against subtitles which expose the truth. [2]
  • Animutations commonly use subtitles to present the comical "fake lyrics" (English words that sound close to what is actually being sung in the song in the non-English language). These fake lyrics are a major staple of the Animutation genre.
  • Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels contains a scene spoken entirely in cockney rhyming slang that is subtitled in standard English.

One unintentional source of humor in subtitles comes from illegal DVDs produced in non-English-speaking countries (esp. China). These DVDs often contain poorly-worded subtitle tracks, possibly produced by machine translation, with humorous results. One of the better-known examples is a copy of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith whose opening title was subtitled, "Star war: The backstroke of the west". [3]

Controversy

One recent controversy about the necessity of subtitles involved the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ. All the dialog in this film was in Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew instead of modern English. Gibson initially intended not to include subtitles in the belief that the audience already knew the story, but the distributors ordered him to include them by arguing that audiences would refuse to watch a film whose dialog was entirely untranslated.

Another controversy arising out of bad subtitling was of Bollywood's "Lagaan".There was a reference to Hindu God Hanuman as Monkey in one of the foreign release print in English which resulted in wide protests & distributors had to change the same & issue an apology.

New technology & Research

Esist has been in the forefront for research in screen translation in media & addressing issues which arise at all levels.

Media Movers, Inc.,a subtitling company,has developed a proprietary software for subtitle creation & burning with pre-defined algorithms.

Subtitle formats

For software video players

Comparison table
Name Extension Type Character Encoding Text Styling Metadata Info Timings Timing Precision
AQTitle .aqt Text-based None No No Framings Dependent on Frame
JACOSub .jss Text-based None Yes No Elapsed Time 10 Milliseconds
MicroDVD .sub Text-based None No No Framings Dependent on Frame
MPEG-4 Timed Text .ttxt XML None Yes No Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond
MPSub .sub Text-based None No Yes Sequential Time 10 Milliseconds
Ogg Writ N/A (mixed with audio/video stream) Text-based None Yes Yes Sequential Granules Dependent on Bitstream
Phoenix Subtitle .pjs Text-based None No No Framings Dependent on Frame
PowerDivX .psb Text-based None No No Elapsed Time 1 Second
RealText .rt HTML-based Unicode (UTF-8) Yes (SMIL) No Elapsed Time 10 Milliseconds
SAMI .smi HTML-based Unicode (Windows-1252) Yes (CSS) Yes Framings Dependent on Frame
Structured Subtitle Format .ssf XML Unicode (UTF-8/16le/16be) Yes Yes Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond
SubRip .srt Text-based Informally Unicode No No Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond
SubStation Alpha .ssa or .ass Text-based None Yes Yes Elapsed Time 10 Milliseconds
SubViewer .sub Text-based None No Yes Elapsed Time 10 Milliseconds
Universal Subtitle Format .usf XML Unicode (UTF-8) Yes (XML DTD) Yes Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond
VobSub .sub + .idx Image-based N/A N/A N/A Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond
VPlayer .txt Text-based None No No Framing or Time 10 Milliseconds
XSUB N/A (embedded in .divx container) Image-based N/A N/A N/A Elapsed Time 1 Millisecond

For media

See also

References

  1. ^ (founder) (2006-12-21). ":: PlanetRead ::" (HTML). SLS (Same Language Subtitles). PlanetRead. p. 1. Retrieved 2007-01-25. http://www.planetread.org/images/res_01.jpg {{cite web}}: Check |authorlink= value (help); External link in |authorlink= and |quote= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ (founder) (2006-12-21). ":: PlanetRead ::" (HTML). SLS (Same Language Subtitles). PlanetRead. p. 1. Retrieved 2007-01-25. Reading becomes automatic, subconscious, in everyday entertainment {{cite web}}: Check |authorlink= value (help); External link in |authorlink= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ (founder) (2006-12-21). ":: PlanetRead ::" (HTML). SLS (Same Language Subtitles). PlanetRead. p. 1. Retrieved 2007-01-25. http://www.planetread.org/images/paper_01_new-02.jpg {{cite web}}: Check |authorlink= value (help); External link in |authorlink= and |quote= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

"A semiolinguistic study of subtitling for an Automatically Processed Concise Writing (©APCW-ECAO) with an audiovisual application.” Paris-X Nanterre University ; National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS/ENS). France, 2005. Doctoral Thesis summa cum laude to be downloaded (pdf) at http://www.paulmemmi.com/?article=2&lang=en

External links

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