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Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

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Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On good TVs under perfect lighting conditions only. Try watching handmaid's tale without blackout blinds.

Good, sounds like we agree that the problem is the way they’re displayed, not the way they’re mastered. If you want to watch a dark scene in bright light then you should have a button on your display/remote that adjusts the settings to make that possible. Tons of people have produced brightened versions of those scenes and put them on YouTube, it’s definitely possible. You can always remove dynamic range in post, har…

You should not need to adjust anything, volume or brightness, in the middle of episodes/movies.

These scenes are poorly edited. I should not have to live-edit them with my remote while watching. I'll do a poor job, and it takes me out of the experience.

These edits don't "take advantage of" dynamic range; they abuse it.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree with all that. A good movie in black and white is infinitely preferable to a bad color movie with surround sound and high def and widescreen, etc. I have nothing against new tech, but the STORY and the motivations of the characters need to be absolutely preeminent. Nothing is worse than a chase scene in which there is no tension, which is why I pretty much stopped watching movies fifteen years ago. Fran…

Meh, I see value in both The Magnificent Ambersons and the French atmospheric cinema of the '60s. Film, as art, should not be forced into a box. There's value to film with no plot at all. Consider Koyaanisqatsi.

I do prefer Koyaanisqatsi to any movie that thinks it has a plot but really just has a bunch of surround sound and vibrant colors signifying nothing. Koyaanisqatsi is great for putting on a large flatscreen in the backround while you're playing a board game with friends.

My favorite movie of all time is City of God -- tons of plot, compelling characters, realistic situation, great music, a totally immersive experience. I consider it the greatest movie ever made in spite of the fact that you have to watch it with subtitles unless you speak Portuguese.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a "mute" button too.

Does it reliably and persistently mute all the time? On iOS specifically I have the problem that sometimes an ad starts to blare from a background tab (sometimes on another tab page) out of the blue. So I try to never leave YouTube open. I cannot imagine that YouTube wants me to keep it shut, but well... there we are. What makes the whole thing even more ironic is that YouTube refuses to play in the background in any…

If I had a device that didn't mute when I told it to, I would consider it faulty and I would return it.

I was talking about watching youtube on my android phone or TV when I wrote the comment. So yes, mute always mutes. I don't know what happens for iOS hostages.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 5.1 vs 2.0 is a bit of a red herring, it used to be a big problem a decade or two ago, but today it is just a small to insignificant contributor to the problem. The real problem now a days is not technical, it is 100% director's choice. Having deafening "wooooon" organ music, and ear popping explosions is simply in vogue, so all directors want that in their movie, and mix like that on purpose. And it is not about…

I’ve been using ear protection in my ears at the movies for decades. They’re just too loud.

yeah, I rec etymotic high fidelity earplugs for the least distorted sound

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also if you speak some Japanese and listen to the Japanese audio while reading the subs it makes for some interesting food for thought, often the translations aren’t exactly what the characters are actually saying so you get a feel for how the languages and cultures differ.

In all honesty, my first assumption would simply be 'poor translation'.

Sometimes it's that, but often it's just that concepts don't really map 1-1. Especially humor, often jokes don't really directly translate well even with great translations, but also because there are connotations to certain words or phrases (e.g. allusions to folklore, or just the feeling of a word is different in each language) that could make a direct translation sound bad. Really common example is that you'll often see advertisements directly translated to English like "Let's go traveling!", "Let's eat seafood!" or whatever, but it just sounds lame in English since people don't talk the same way (and ironically sounds cooler to Japanese people because it's in a foreign language).

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#736
post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using ear protection in my ears at the movies for decades. They’re just too loud.

yeah, I rec etymotic high fidelity earplugs for the least distorted sound

That would probably be a step up from the wadded tissue I usually resort to. Not that I go to the movies much any more.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason TikTok etc. have closed captions on is that audio is off by default. If you want people to listen to your words but audio is off, put it into closed captions. I can't believe that whole dramatic article missed this very obvious reason.

It didn't. When I downloaded it the other week to see what all the hubbub was about (spoiler alert: I killed it with fire lol), audio was on by default and I had to change that setting. I'd wager that OP forgot that they set it themselves.

I think it depends on whether your phone is on silent.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#738

The fact that there's a claimed generational gap here speaks more to the values of the generations re: passive vs active entertainment. I could also ask: "Why do all these 60-Somethings have the TV on as background noise while doing other tasks?" To me it seems closed-caption usage is correlated with actually paying attention to television consumption. People who have their TV on at all hours, as background entertain…

Your tone is a little smug here. If I’m paying attention to something I’m watching on TV, I can hear the dialogue. I want to be able to actually watch the performances of the actors, or whatever else is on the screen, instead of reading captions.

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