MovieChat Forums > Doc Martin (2004) Discussion > What the !@#$ is up with the subtitles?

What the !@#$ is up with the subtitles?

posted 8 years ago by shoobe01-1
4 replies | jump to latest

We use the caption service all the time, dogs and children make the audio sometimes hard to get so instead of going back we can get the gist this way. This has got the most relentlessly bad captions I have ever seen. Inaccurate, drop words, and then they just give up. Two examples from a show I just watched (may be slightly inaccurate):

"Can you hand me that [inaudible]?"
No, he said "Spanner" very clearly.

"I called the [Inaudble] and they cannot be here till..."
Council. He said "council."

This is not complex. But it seems they have hired someone who has never even seen a UK show, so simply cannot handle typical phrases, at all. How is it that the production company doesn't give them scripts instead?

[–] sandvette9 8 years ago

I use the captions all the time too and love it for all my shows. I haven't noticed a problem with Doc Martin but I have the choice of two caption services ( I guess you would call it) and maybe you do too so I'd say to try the other one and see if it's any better.

[–] alifeatthemovies 8 years ago

The subtitles on Netflix are terrible. They were clearly done by someone with no experience with British English or maybe any kind of English. Every few minutes there is an [inaudible] even though it is clear, even to me as an American, what they are saying. Other times they just make wild guesses. Once a patient said "It's medical." and the sub said "I'm magical."

[–] ShannonTriumphant 8 years ago

I've noticed that as well and I suspect it's the captioning service being geared to American English. Then again, there are different services. Some of them come with your TV (ours does) but the ones run by the networks are generally horrible. They have the most difficulty with weather forecasters, especially their banter and "jokes", and offbeat shows like "Mr. Robot" or "Halt and Catch Fire", both of which have lots of computer jargon. I get a good laugh out of them, usually.

I followed all the rules...and you followed none of them. And they all loved you more.

[–] shoobe01-1 8 years ago

This season both Halt and Catch Fire and Mr. Robot have been weirdly good. They are getting weird brand spellings right like GEnie. They must have finally gotten the scripts.

But until then, yeah. Technical stuff is a disaster usually.