The many types of Blu-ray subtitles - which ones are your favorite?

[I KEEL YOU]

In the days of DVD, it seemed like there was only one type of subtitles. But now there are many:

The standard, used by the major studios, Criterion, etc:



Eureka Entertainment - slightly different:



I've only seen these on the Japanese Terminator 2, these are my personal favorites:



Shout Factory:



Sony's black background subtitles - stupid if you ask me, especially when there isn't an option for ordinary subtitles like in this movie:



Godfather, it's nice if they fit with the style of the movie but they obviously wouldn't be good for every movie:



Rounded:



Using different colors for dialogue that isn't on the screen:

[The Great Owl]

Standard

The only time that I have trouble with subtitles is when they are extremely small. The subtitles in Hidden (Caché) are a good example. In any given situation, though, I prefer standard subtitles.

[HD Goofnut]

Standard white. I don't like the shrunken font that some have, or the yellow, or the few with white text inside a black box.

[bigdaddyhorse]

Don't have a favorite as I rarely use them, but hate those black boxes as they obscure so much more picture than needed. Second worst is flat white without borders playing over a bright scene, then they disappear and are useless.
As ugly as yellow ones are, they get the job done better than white on bright.

[BuckNaked2k]

Yellow. White often becomes unreadable if the background lightens up.

[MifuneFan]

The standard is fine. The only time I'm bothered by white subs is when the scene is white, or overly bright and the subs can't be read. I wish the Blu-ray format allowed you to customize subtitles so that we could change the font, size, and color of them.

[bigdaddyhorse]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

The standard is fine. The only time I'm bothered by white subs is when the scene is white, or overly bright and the subs can't be read. I wish the Blu-ray format allowed you to customize subtitles so that we could change the font, size, and color of them.

Or if they took things like brightness of the scene into consideration while making the subs. I wouldn't complain if subs changed from white to yellow when over a bright spot, or change from un-bordered to bordered. Anything to keep them readable (besides the black box), is that too much to ask?

[Deciazulado]

I actually like smaller subtitles (like in theatrical prints) since the regular ones look too big when the BDs are watched at theatrical fields of view. Maybe Oppo could have an option to shrink the subtitle image one day . Oh and no color.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by I KEEL YOU

Sony's black background subtitles - stupid if you ask me, especially when there isn't an option for ordinary subtitles like in this movie:

Aren't those Closed Captions?

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Maybe Oppo could have an option to shrink the subtitle image one day . Oh and no color.

I spotted the function on the PS3 the other day but the BD didn't allow for any options. It's such a shame that they aren't fully customizable to our preference.

I used to hate burnt-in subtitles on DVD as they always looked terrible but I kind of miss them now when the BD's subtitles don't fit the movie.

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[A Tortured Duckling]

I like the standard ones, too. However, i don't use subtitles for anything but Korean films...and they are usually all over the place

[HyperRealist]

I don't care as long as they are in the completely in the frame. I have a scope screen but I don't have an Oppo to shift the subtitles.

[Hinz]

I like thin white subs that have enough black outline to be easily readable in bright scenes.

Why do they sometimes not add (or add way way way too little) black outline to subtitles? I don't get it. Someone must make the decision when making the BDs. I'm curious what's their thought process. They might as well skip the subtitles if they're often gonna be unreadable.
I've seen this more than a few times. Sometimes they skip black outlines and they are unreadable in bright scenes, sometimes they just add a bit but they are still not much better than those without.

[sukraj]

Standard white.

[spanky87]

Yellow and within the frame.

Yellow seems to be the best color.I've seen many blu-rays and films theatrically with white subtitles and they can be unreadable at times.

[P@t_Mtl]

Just the standard white ones are good for me

[Rizor]

Originally Posted by chip75

Aren't those Closed Captions?

Sony places their SDH tracks in the black background now. Luckily, they still include regular subtitles as well, but the SDH track is usually encoded as the first track.

I personally prefer the standard subtitles, though I would like the font slightly smaller.

[moviebuff75]

Does anyone remember what color the "Dances With Wolves" subtitles were in the theater? I can't remember if they were white or yellow.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Rizor

Sony places their SDH tracks in the black background now. Luckily, they still include regular subtitles as well, but the SDH track is usually encoded as the first track.

I personally prefer the standard subtitles, though I would like the font slightly smaller.

I watched a few films last week with translations and the text size was just too small. I think it was the Russian in A Good Day To Die Hard it was tiny on a 42'' TV, I think it was burnt-in too it was definitely forced.

[filmmusic]

Those on Eureka, are great!

[mar3o]

This makes me wonder - the Airplane blu-ray includes a pop-up trivia track that appears as bubbles that pop up during the film. I that a type of subtitle? If so, what format is that?

Those Sony subtitles look terrible. It reminds me of closed captioning.

I find yellow is the most comfortable to view but I usually have no issues with white either. My media player box allows me to change the color of the subtitles, and I usually select yellow if I have the choice. For blu-ray discs white usually doesn't bother me. As others mentioned, sometimes white can become an issue against a bright background though.