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'''Subtitles''' are textual versions of the dialogue in films and television programmes, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialogue in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialogue in the same language - with or without added information intended to help viewers with hearing disabilities to follow the dialogue. 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.
'''Subtitles''' are textual versions of the dialogue in films and television programmes, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialogue in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialogue in the same language - with or without added information intended to help viewers with hearing disabilities to follow the dialogue. 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.


§<sup></sup>== Translation ==
== Translation ==


Subtitles could be used to translate dialogues from foreign language to native language of audience. It is the quickest and the cheapest method to translate content, usually praised for the possibility to hear the original dialogue and voice of the actors.
Subtitles could be used to translate dialogues from foreign language to native language of audience. It is the quickest and the cheapest method to translate content, usually praised for the possibility to hear the original dialogue and voice of the actors.


Translation subtitling is very different from the translation of written text. When a film or a TV programme is subtitled, the translation subtitler watches the picture and listens to the audio (sometimes having access to a written transcript of the dialogue as well) sentence by sentence. He/she then writes subtitles in the target language that convey '''what is meant''', rather than being an exact rendering of '''how it is said''', i.e. meaning is more important than form. This is not always appreciated by the audience and can be frustrating to those who know a little of the language being spoken. It is done when the dialogue must be condensed in order to achieve an acceptable reading speed (if there is not enough time to both read the subtitles and watch the program, the whole purpose of subtitling is lost), and the fact that spoken language can contain unimportant verbal padding or culturally implied meanings in words which is only confusing if not adapted in the written subtitles.
Translation









































































































is very different from the translation of written text. When a film or a TV programme is subtitled, the translation subtitler watches the picture and listens to the audio (sometimes having access to a written transcript of the dialogue as well) sentence by sentence. He/she then writes subtitles in the target language that convey '''what is meant''', rather than being an exact rendering of '''how it is said''', i.e. meaning is more important than form. This is not always appreciated by the audience and can be frustrating to those who know a little of the language being spoken. It is done when the dialogue must be condensed in order to achieve an acceptable reading speed (if there is not enough time to both read the subtitles and watch the program, the whole purpose of subtitling is lost), and the fact that spoken language can contain unimportant verbal padding or culturally implied meanings in words which is only confusing if not adapted in the written subtitles.


In some cases, the form of a sentence plays a very important role in the meaning, and the subtitler has to preserve this additionnal information. It can be a very difficult task, especially when the source language has specific words to convey an idea, for which the target language lacks equivalent words. For example, the Japanese language has multiple first-person (see [[Japanese pronouns]]), and using one instead of another implies a different degree of politeness. When translating to English, the subtitler may have to compensate for this lack of nuance by reformulating the sentence or adding words if the preservation of the original tone of the message is important.
In some cases, the form of a sentence plays a very important role in the meaning, and the subtitler has to preserve this additionnal information. It can be a very difficult task, especially when the source language has specific words to convey an idea, for which the target language lacks equivalent words. For example, the Japanese language has multiple first-person (see [[Japanese pronouns]]), and using one instead of another implies a different degree of politeness. When translating to English, the subtitler may have to compensate for this lack of nuance by reformulating the sentence or adding words if the preservation of the original tone of the message is important.
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* [http://www.opensubtitles.org/ Subtitles download]
* [http://www.opensubtitles.org/ Subtitles download]
* [http://titles.box.sk/ More film subtitles in various languages]
* [http://titles.box.sk/ More film subtitles in various languages]
* [http://anysubs.com/ An all-languages, all-material subtitles database project open for public downloads and uploads]
* [http://www.divxplanet.com/index.php Turkish subtitles]
* [http://www.divxplanet.com/index.php Turkish subtitles]
* [http://www.shooter.cn/ Best Chinese subtitles]
* [http://www.shooter.cn/ Best Chinese subtitles]

Revision as of 17:42, 29 November 2006

File:A film with subtitles.JPG
A French movie, Le Garçon sauvage, with German subtitles
File:Untertitel.jpg
Production of teletext subtitles
For other uses, see Subtitle.

Subtitles are textual versions of the dialogue in films and television programmes, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialogue in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialogue in the same language - with or without added information intended to help viewers with hearing disabilities to follow the dialogue. 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.

Translation

Subtitles could be used to translate dialogues from foreign language to native language of audience. It is the quickest and the cheapest method to translate content, usually praised for the possibility to hear the original dialogue and voice of the actors.

Translation subtitling is very different from the translation of written text. When a film or a TV programme is subtitled, the translation subtitler watches the picture and listens to the audio (sometimes having access to a written transcript of the dialogue as well) sentence by sentence. He/she then writes subtitles in the target language that convey what is meant, rather than being an exact rendering of how it is said, i.e. meaning is more important than form. This is not always appreciated by the audience and can be frustrating to those who know a little of the language being spoken. It is done when the dialogue must be condensed in order to achieve an acceptable reading speed (if there is not enough time to both read the subtitles and watch the program, the whole purpose of subtitling is lost), and the fact that spoken language can contain unimportant verbal padding or culturally implied meanings in words which is only confusing if not adapted in the written subtitles.

In some cases, the form of a sentence plays a very important role in the meaning, and the subtitler has to preserve this additionnal information. It can be a very difficult task, especially when the source language has specific words to convey an idea, for which the target language lacks equivalent words. For example, the Japanese language has multiple first-person (see Japanese pronouns), and using one instead of another implies a different degree of politeness. When translating to English, the subtitler may have to compensate for this lack of nuance by reformulating the sentence or adding words if the preservation of the original tone of the message is important.

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 selected to display the dialogue 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 favoured 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 programmes 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 noticable 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 detatched, inappropriate for the character, or overly expressive; and that ambient sounds are usually lost in the dubbing.

Subtitling is also an advantage for deaf people.

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 programmes as well as subtitles in Welsh for deaf people.

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).

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

Same language subtitles

Same language subtitles, i.e., without translation, are primarily intended as an aid for people with hearing impairments.

Subtitles in the same language as the dialogue 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 of subtitles by those without hearing impairments

Although same-language subtitles and captions are produced primarily with the deaf and hard-of-hearing in mind, many non-hearing impaired 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 dialogue will be missed. In addition, subtitles may further reveal information that would be difficult to pick up on otherwise. Some examples of this would be the song lyrics; dialogue spoken quietly or by those with unfamiliar accents; or supportive, minor dialogue 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 dialogue while not having to resort to a translation.

Creation of subtitles

Today professional subtitlers usually work with specialised 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).

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 interconvertible) 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

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 the hard-of-hearing. These are a transcription rather than a translation, and usually contain descriptions of important non-dialogue 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 subtitles

"SDH" is an American term introduced by the DVD industry. It's an acronym for "Subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing", and refers to regular subtitles in the original language where important non-dialogue audio has been added, as well as speaker identification (useful when you can't 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.

DVD's 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. Although, some blu-ray discs are said to carry a closed caption stream that only displays through standard definition connections.

Live subtitles

Live subtitling (live captioning) of news, sports events, and live debates is becoming increasingly common, especially in the UK and the US, as a result of regulations that stipulate that virtually all TV eventually must be accessible for those with hearing disabilities.

Such subtitles, which need be displayed within 2-3 seconds of the audio they represent, are usually produced by specially trained, court stenographers, using stenotype or velotype keyboards. However, the most recent development is using specialised voice recognition software, into which an operator re-speaks the dialogue being heard. In the UK the re-speak technology has advanced so quickly that about 50% of all live subtitling is currently (2005) being done through re-speak.

In order to minimise the unavoidable delay, live subtitles are usually displayed as scrolling text instead of being presented as one- or two-line subtitle blocks.

It is unavoidable that live subtitling contains more errors than pre-produced subtitles, as there is no time to correct a typing error or a mishearing (the operator's or the computer's). However, the benefits for viewers with hearing disabilities are considered more important than error-free subtitles.

Live translation subtitling is rarely done. It usually involves a simultaneous interpreter who listens to the dialogue and quickly translates it aloud, while a stenographer types down the interpreter's words. The unavoidable delay, the unavoidable typing errors, the lack of editing, and the high costs, mean that the number of times live translation subtitling is regarded as necessary are very few. Letting the simultaneous interpreter speak directly to the viewers is usually both cheaper and quicker.

Subtitles as a source of humor

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

  • In Austin Powers in Goldmember, Japanese dialogue is subtitled using white type that blends in with white objects in the background. An example is when white binders turn the subtitle "I have a huge rodent problem" into "I have a huge rod".
  • 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 humour 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.
  • 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 realises that Hfuhruhurr can speak English. He asks his colleague in their squad car to turn off the subtitles, and indicates towards 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 dialogue 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. [1]
  • 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". [2]

Controversy

One recent controversy about the necessity of subtitles involved the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ. All the dialogue 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 dialogue was entirely untranslated.

Subtitle formats

For software video players

For media

See also

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