Best/Worst companies for subtitles?

[DeathlyGeneral]

Hi, I haven't been collecting Blu-rays for very long, but I've noticed that different Blu-ray companies have very different subtitle options. I need English subtitles to understand films so I greatly appreciate companies that subtitle their films and bonus features. Fox are, in my experience, by far the best, subtitling not only the film and bonus features, but the commentaries as well. WB, Universal, Paramount and Disney subtitle the film and bonus features, but not commentaries. Lionsgate don't seem to subtitle bonus features and Optimum have quite a few releases that have no subtitles whatsoever. It's also infuriating but understandable that Criterion and Arrow don't subtitle their bonus features. They surely have little money to spend after paying for restoration work, but it still annoys me that they put so much care into their extras but don't subtitle them, or even port subtitles over from older releases.

What companies are the best/worse for Engish subtitling?

[Saber Rider]

This topic hits close to home, as I prefer to watch all of my films and TV shows with English subtitles. For various reasons. It doesn't matter if the releases' audio is in English or not. Likewise, I won't buy a blu-ray or DVD edition if it doesn't have them.

Just to be clear, my following remarks concern the blu-ray editions of films and TV shows that have English audio.

Major distributors like Warner, Universal, Disney, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Lionsgate, Studiocanal, and BBC/2 Entertain subtitle all their releases. The same goes for Entertainment in Video and Entertainment One. Some of Studiocanal's early releases don't have them, as well as many editions released during the Optimum era.

When it comes to smaller companies, Powerhouse/Indicator, Eureka, Signal One, Icon, and BFI tend to subtitle all their releases. Arrow and Second Sight are usually good in this regard, but sometimes they release a film that doesn't have them. For example, Hell Comes to Frogtown, City of the Living Dead, Heaven's Gate, Streets of Fire, etc.

Network is hit and miss. They mostly subtitle their films, but it varies when it comes to TV shows. Most of their recent TV releases don't have subtitles.

Distributors like Signature and Kaleidoscope usually don't subtitle their releases, but some of their recent releases do have them, so they might have revised their policy.

Mediumrare and Fabulous Films aren't consistent. Mediumrare usually subtitles its releases, and Fabulous Films usually doesn't.

Early 88 Films releases don't have subtitles, but they've changed in that regard. Most of their recent releases do have them, with a couple of exceptions, such as Eliminators.

As far as I know, 101 Films is the worst distributor when it comes to subtitles. They don't subtitle their films whatsoever.

[ravenus]

Usually it's only the major studios that can afford to subtitle extras. Boutique studios will only subtitle foreign language extras. The BFI being a publicly supported venture may have some contractual obligation for subtitling of all its releases so as to not isolate hearing impaired audiences. One thing I dislike about Criterion is that if a film has multiple languages, then the English portions are not subtitled. I wish they offered an option of full subtitling, as it can be helpful especially when characters have thick accents while speaking English.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by ravenus

Usually it's only the major studios that can afford to subtitle extras.

I know some niche labels operate on a relative shoestring (as they sell in the thousands if not hundreds of units), but subtitling shouldn't be a cost issue for a larger independent. I think the costs are a few £s per minute, so in theory they're potential losing more than that with lost customers.

[ravenus]

@chip75: A message from Michael Brooke regarding the logistics of subtitles in boutique label offerings:

Feel free to post this on the "which companies do the best/worst subtitles" thread.

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Out of curiosity, I’ve just totted up the cost of subtitling all the extras for Indicator’s Charley Varrick at the usual going rate for origination including transcription, and I reckon we’d be looking at a bill of at least a grand, not counting the cost of additional QC time.

I’m afraid I’m simply not convinced that extra sales would make up what to a small company is a pretty huge difference, because I simply don't believe that a measurably significant number of people are refusing to buy this release (which, after all, does feature SDH subtitles on the main feature and indeed the Super 8 cutdown) purely because the extras aren’t subtitled. Especially if the extras are unlikely to be made available anywhere else.

Believe me, I do sympathise (I'd personally love to see French, Italian, German etc. subtitles on the extras of discs from those countries) - but the sad fact is that on a generously stacked disc they’re a much bigger expense than chip75 makes out. In the current commercial climate, with physical media sales inexorably in long-term decline, companies that don’t watch every penny like the proverbial hawk will go under sooner rather than later, and I’m afraid this is considered a necessary sacrifice.

[chip75]

Michael Brook's comments kind of confirm what I was saying (I was commenting more on feature subtitles than extras, which I should have clarified), it's just our definition of niche distributor that's different! But for a label one step down from a major, the cost of subtitles for a movie and a handful of extras is still achievable. But for guys working out of their living room they're an expense and risk they can't afford to take.

But Michael does highlight the sad fact that margins are so tight with independent labels, when a few hundred quid makes the difference. We've gone from the heyday of DVD to the days were titles sell a few hundred copies in the UK.

[Mr. Brightside]

Michael's comments are much appreciated. I'm hard of hearing as a result of a long-term illness, and would love it if extras were subtitled. However, I now fully understand why this cannot be the case.

[DvdClon]

Have any of you ever looked at the auto-generated subtitles on some YouTube videos? They have to be enabled by the uploader, so they're not available on all of them. For an example, search for "Johnny English 2003 Full movie !! HD quality" on YouTube

The process stumbles a bit on unusual names and words, but it's usually good enough to get the gist of the dialog.

I've been wondering if some TV or player manufacturer might license or develop their own process to enable this for those discs without subs or captions.

[ravenus]

^Non-native accents can make it very dodgy.

[Takeshi666]

Yeah really. And I've noticed that sometimes, the words in the youtube generated subtitles appear before they're actually spoken, and without any sort of sensible structuring it's just put out as one long run-on sentence which can be really difficult to follow.

The thread title made me expect this to be about dubtitles or something.

[MarcusZoller]

I watched The Pianist for the first time ever the other day. My copy happens to be from KimchiDVD who I used to collect in their early days.

The subtitles are appalling. Korean subtitles are present if you don't switch them off (which is fine, obviously they are catering to their main market) but you need to turn on English subtitles to translate the German that is spoken intermittently during the film, and then it is hit and miss as to whether you get translated subtitles, German language subtitles, or absolute nonsense. In some ways, I understand, it's a Korean company, but if you're charging a premium, then make sure the subtitles are on point.