Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Flicker Alley

#76 Post by zedz » Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:24 pm

Also, in the celluloid screening situations mentioned, coloured subtitles were never an option. That would entail extensive optical work and the prints would then need to be printed on colour stock, which is not an option economically and would have been a disaster aesthetically, since colour stock fades in colour.

Perkins Cobb
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Re: Flicker Alley

#77 Post by Perkins Cobb » Tue Apr 02, 2013 4:53 pm

Subsequent to our last white-vs-yellow subtitles argument, in which I was basically neutral but puzzled over the vehemence of the anti-yellow contingent, I watched a black-and-white Scope film (Taxi For Tobruk) with white subtitles. It seemed to me that yellow, by standing out more against the mostly white & grey image (the film is set in the desert), could've taken a fraction of a second less time to read than the white did, thus giving me a smidgen more time to look at the image rather than read the words. So there's that argument ... although it's certainly not enough to make me a zealot for yellow. And on the other hand, had the film been set entirely at night instead, the white would've been just as good and yellow might have seemed much more gaudy.

smergo
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#78 Post by smergo » Wed Apr 03, 2013 2:02 pm

Why are no DVD companies using the advantages of the format and put two types of subtitles on their releases? Why not include white AND yellow subtitles (and green ones, just for good measure)?
I also think it would be neat to choose between two different font sizes (a bigger one for smaller screens and vice versa).

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swo17
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#79 Post by swo17 » Wed Apr 03, 2013 2:55 pm

Your first suggestion is silly, but the second one is a great idea.

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Tommaso
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#80 Post by Tommaso » Wed Apr 03, 2013 3:47 pm

If I remember correctly, the first suggestion was actually realised on the second 'supa-dupa special edition' of the R1 "La dolce vita", which I don't have ( I have the first one with only yellow subs, and I always have to turn my TV to 'pure' black and white manually to get rid of the coloured subs). So I think it's a good idea indeed. And the second suggestion is even better. Would love to have it on many MoC discs which almost always have too large subs for my taste.

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TMDaines
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#81 Post by TMDaines » Wed Apr 03, 2013 5:55 pm

Both are good ideas and it does beg the question. A similar one is why companies don't offer both HoH subs and vanilla ones at times. It takes literally seconds to strip all of the sound effects annotations out of HoH subs.

Speaking of subtitles, I think I'm actually becoming in favour of subtitles being mandatory on all releases. I used to be against it on principle, but if France can do it then why can't other countries? It's so annoying to see the lack of German subs on DVDs of films from their own country. The knock-on effect is that fansubs are less likely to get made too.

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Tommaso
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#82 Post by Tommaso » Wed Apr 03, 2013 6:12 pm

I think we'd need some EU legislation to realise that, but I'm all for mandatory subs of some kind, ideally indeed with both HOH and 'normal' versions. It would only be in the interest of the labels themselves as it would allow them to sell more copies. Of course, there's the licensing problem which only a label like Filmmuseum probably doesn't have (speaking of their silents only). But even subs in the original language might be helpful. For instance, I'm somewhat able to read French even if I don't understand it acoustically. But the HOH subs on the Gaumont à la demande releases which always tell me "music continuing" or "gunshot" - and switching from left to right according to which character is speaking - are a complete no-go, which then makes me rely on custom-subbed versions and, alas, loses them a customer.

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knives
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#83 Post by knives » Wed Apr 03, 2013 11:48 pm

smergo wrote:Why are no DVD companies using the advantages of the format and put two types of subtitles on their releases? Why not include white AND yellow subtitles (and green ones, just for good measure)?
I also think it would be neat to choose between two different font sizes (a bigger one for smaller screens and vice versa).
Animeigo in the US actually do do your first suggestion with the option between colour subtitles that switch colour for each speaker and white subtitles that go into a light gray for a second speaker.

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MichaelB
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#84 Post by MichaelB » Thu Apr 04, 2013 2:25 am

smergo wrote:Why are no DVD companies using the advantages of the format and put two types of subtitles on their releases? Why not include white AND yellow subtitles (and green ones, just for good measure)?
I also think it would be neat to choose between two different font sizes (a bigger one for smaller screens and vice versa).
If I remember rightly, Mondo Vision does just that (i.e. offers a choice of colour and size) on its Andrzej Żuławski releases.

Mathew2468
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#85 Post by Mathew2468 » Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:05 pm

And I always use the yellow ones because I'm deranged.

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swo17
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#86 Post by swo17 » Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:10 pm

For the record, when I said that multiple color options were silly, I just meant that if the subs were always offered in white with black borders, no one would ever think to ask for another option. Am I wrong?

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zedz
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#87 Post by zedz » Thu Apr 04, 2013 4:37 pm

That's my reasoning too. If the subs are legible, discreet and not coloured, is anybody going to be writing angry "WHERE ARE MY PURPLE SUBS THAT FILL THE BOTTOM TWO THIRDS OF THE SCREEN!!!" letters to the label?

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Gregory
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#88 Post by Gregory » Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:04 pm

I want all my subtitles to be in "papyrus" type, Avatar-style, and everyone's preferences are equally valid, so there you have it. Include it as an option.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#89 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:29 pm

The old New Yorker video of Ozu's Equinox Flower not only had ugly color balance overall, but also huge yellow subtitles (in a very blocky unattractive font). Put me off the film until I finally saw the (unsubbed) Shochiku DVD. ;-}

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knives
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#90 Post by knives » Thu Apr 04, 2013 8:09 pm

swo17 wrote:For the record, when I said that multiple color options were silly, I just meant that if the subs were always offered in white with black borders, no one would ever think to ask for another option. Am I wrong?
Yes, my sister on those Animeigo discs chooses the colour options because it makes it easier for her to tell who is talking.

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zedz
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#91 Post by zedz » Thu Apr 04, 2013 9:58 pm

The big question is: does she write angry letters to all the other DVD labels who don't do the colour-coded-for-individual-speakers subs?

(If the answer is yes, I'm very, very sorry for bringing this up.)

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knives
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#92 Post by knives » Thu Apr 04, 2013 10:07 pm

No, she lives with it when other DVDs aren't as accommodating.

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MichaelB
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#93 Post by MichaelB » Fri Apr 05, 2013 4:48 am

The only time I've ever been minded to complain to a label about their subtitles was in connection with Facets' eastern European releases.

And in their case, being yellow was a very minor crime compared with everything else - out-of-sync subtitles are a far worse crime, especially if they're non-removable!

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colinr0380
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#94 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Apr 05, 2013 12:05 pm

smergo wrote:I also think it would be neat to choose between two different font sizes (a bigger one for smaller screens and vice versa).
I have quite a few Artsmagic DVD releases (both US and UK discs) which also did the same thing of having two subtitle tracks with one set of fonts a little larger than the other. It had never really occurred to me until this point that it might be something to do with letting the viewer choose a size based on different sized screens, but it seems so obvious to me now!

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MichaelB
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#95 Post by MichaelB » Fri Apr 05, 2013 12:17 pm

Amusingly enough, this letter has just appeared in the new Sight & Sound:
My wife and I are keen cinemagoers and we visit our local art cinema - the Cornerhouse in Manchester - practically every week. Last week we saw Gangs of Wasseypur. Unfortunately, the subtitles for some parts of the film were unreadable, i.e. white on white, which of course spoiled the film for us. Earlier in the week I saw the film No and the subtitles were in yellow, and they were easy to read. Is it possible to ask that films be subtitled in either yellow or a strip of black along the base of the print - where of course the subtitles would be in white?

Kenneth Gold, Bury, Lancashire

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#96 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Apr 05, 2013 12:58 pm

As ugly as yellow subs may be, there is nothing I hate worse than white subs on a white (or even mostly white) background.

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MichaelB
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#97 Post by MichaelB » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:03 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:As ugly as yellow subs may be, there is nothing I hate worse than white subs on a white (or even mostly white) background.
The climactic scene of Satyajit Ray's The Adversary, involving four men in white shirts arguing with each other, is largely incomprehensible in Mr Bongo's edition, which was clearly sourced from a print with burned-in subs. I'd have much preferred yellow subs to that, or indeed anything readable.

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knives
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#98 Post by knives » Fri Apr 05, 2013 4:24 pm

Fortunately it seems Criterion is wiping that clean.

JonasEB
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Re: Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

#99 Post by JonasEB » Sun Apr 07, 2013 6:24 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:As ugly as yellow subs may be, there is nothing I hate worse than white subs on a white (or even mostly white) background.
I had to ditch watching Rivette's L'Amour Fou 1 hour in due to this. It's unwatchable. Really need a good release of this one.

I don't mind yellow subtitles myself...at least in most cases (and only for color films.) The yellow subtitles used by Sony are certainly ugly. The yellow subtitles used for Disney's Studio Ghibli DVDs look fine.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Flicker Alley

#100 Post by matrixschmatrix » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:58 pm

captveg wrote:Better let Francis Ford Coppola and James Cameron know yellow subtitles are wrong. ;)
I just saw The Godfather at the Cinemark classic movies thing tonight, and they actually had white subtitles for the Italian conversations- which is something I hadn't seen before.

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