Speaking of shameful, anti-human behaviour related to closed captions, I have some pet peeves that would be trivial to fix, but major production companies simply refuse to implement.
(There are ZERO excuses for all of the below. None. It's just text on a screen, displayed by dedicated apps on Smart TVs, fully equipped with CPUs and GPUs! Netflix staff especially that come across this thread: You should be ashamed. Shame. Shame. Shame.)
1. English subtitles != English subtitles for the hearing impaired. I don't want "Breathes loudly" and "Bang!" over action scenes. I live in a household where everyone's second language is English, and if I turn the subtitles on for them, the extra sound-effects subtitles drive me crazy.
2. Can't have multiple subtitles for mixed-language households. My partner prefers subtitles in her language, but then if there's a scene in an English-language movie with a short foreign-language segment in it, I have to pause, switch to English for the hearing impaired (see point #1), and then pause and switch back when the scene is over. I should be able to select any two or even three subtitle languages, such as "auto english + japanese", or whatever.
3. Can't have subtitles in some languages. Netflix in particular loves to waste $500K annual total comp on data scientists who analyse their market segments to select the "top 5" languages in each market region. Don't speak one of those languages? Tough titties, no subtitles for you! It's not even a matter of copyright or distribution rights. They do this for their own productions too! They do it because some idiot at Netflix thought too many options was "hard to navigate". You know what's even harder? Trying to understand a movie when it doesn't have subtitles matching your language!!
4. Eye-searing HDR subtitles. Netflix again. On my Sony OLED TV the subtitles use the HDR max-brightness white. They illuminate my entire room and look like someone is trying to burn the text into my retinas with high-powered flashlights. This cannot be adjusted... for some languages. For like, no reason. English: can be fixed! French: yes. Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, Romanian, Traditional Chinese, and Thai: BURN YOUR HEATHEN EYEBALLS! See: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/100267
(There are ZERO excuses for all of the below. None. It's just text on a screen, displayed by dedicated apps on Smart TVs, fully equipped with CPUs and GPUs! Netflix staff especially that come across this thread: You should be ashamed. Shame. Shame. Shame.)
1. English subtitles != English subtitles for the hearing impaired. I don't want "Breathes loudly" and "Bang!" over action scenes. I live in a household where everyone's second language is English, and if I turn the subtitles on for them, the extra sound-effects subtitles drive me crazy.
2. Can't have multiple subtitles for mixed-language households. My partner prefers subtitles in her language, but then if there's a scene in an English-language movie with a short foreign-language segment in it, I have to pause, switch to English for the hearing impaired (see point #1), and then pause and switch back when the scene is over. I should be able to select any two or even three subtitle languages, such as "auto english + japanese", or whatever.
3. Can't have subtitles in some languages. Netflix in particular loves to waste $500K annual total comp on data scientists who analyse their market segments to select the "top 5" languages in each market region. Don't speak one of those languages? Tough titties, no subtitles for you! It's not even a matter of copyright or distribution rights. They do this for their own productions too! They do it because some idiot at Netflix thought too many options was "hard to navigate". You know what's even harder? Trying to understand a movie when it doesn't have subtitles matching your language!!
4. Eye-searing HDR subtitles. Netflix again. On my Sony OLED TV the subtitles use the HDR max-brightness white. They illuminate my entire room and look like someone is trying to burn the text into my retinas with high-powered flashlights. This cannot be adjusted... for some languages. For like, no reason. English: can be fixed! French: yes. Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, Romanian, Traditional Chinese, and Thai: BURN YOUR HEATHEN EYEBALLS! See: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/100267