I know an increasing number of people who watch with captions on all the time. Sometimes it’s because you don’t want to wake a sleeping child, spouse, or partner. Sometimes it’s because you’re multitasking. There are a lot of good reasons why someone would have captions on all the time. Perhaps the best reason is the reason they were designed for: you might have some hearing loss.
And there’s one very bad reason to keep captions on all the time. It’s the one I use and it’s probably the #1 reason that people keep captioning on: you can’t understand what people are saying. And friends, let me say it clearly: that stinks.
The difference in experience
A friend and I have both been watching Wheel of Time on Prime Video. They watch everything with subtitles on in order to be polite to others in the home. I watch things as loud as I want. They really like the show. I’ve been… underimpressed. I found it hard to follow and confusing. Honestly, I couldn’t even get the characters’ names right.
I decided to try watching this season with captions on. What a massive difference! I didn’t realize what I was missing, have an extra level of information there. Suddenly I could tell the difference between intentional gibberish and the characters’ names! All in all it’s transformed the way I watch the show. I’m enjoying it a lot more now, almost enough to recommend it.
It should not be this way
Put “muddy audio” on the same list that includes “pictures too dark” when it comes to intentional offenses against the viewer. For years now we’ve had to deal with stuff that is just too dark. Filmmakers are doing it on purpose. They want to create content that looks good in pitch-dark rooms. That’s great for them and their “intent” but it means the average person can’t actually see anything. It’s gotten ridiculous, especially for those with even slightly older TVs.
If you don’t have a full Dolby Atmos rig in your living room, the same people who make dark shows also make shows where people mumble. The center channel is generally mixed too quietly. When combined with hard-to-understand names or actors with varying accents, this makes it very hard for folks to know what’s being said.
It should not be this way. I have said over and over that the creators intention is just one side of the equation. Content can’t have an effect on society if no one consumes it. I’m not saying you have to pander to people with 13-inch standard definition TVs with tinny audio. I’m saying you have to consider the way most people are going to watch stuff and at the very least make it possible to enjoy it that way.
It’s not just me.
Upcoming OS releases for streaming boxes are supposedly going to use AI to enhance voices on the center channel. That’s ok but obviously that shortcuts the “filmmaker’s intent” anyway. If that’s going to happen using AI, shouldn’t the filmmaker want to do it the way they want to do it, rather than having the AI decide?
It’s obvious that I’m not the only one who thinks that unwatchable, unlistenable content in streaming is a huge problem. With streamers raising prices almost daily, shouldn’t they be giving an increase in watchability to go along with those higher prices? It seems like a no-brainer, and yet it’s obviously something that no one in Hollywood is doing. Why not?
