Forum Discussion

Ananisapta's avatar
Ananisapta
Reel Rookie
8 months ago
Solved

Subtitles only suitable for deaf people

We recently started watching Shetland, which we think would be interesting if we could understand the dialog. Unfortunately, the only available subtitles are for deaf people, so they litter the screen with messages about background noises, like "Birds chirping... birds still chirping... traffic noise... birds stop chirping..." etc ad nauseam. We'd really like Roku to find some subtitles that are suitable for the 99% who hear OK rather than for the 1% who are totally deaf.

  • Ananisapta's avatar
    Ananisapta
    8 months ago

    Thanks! I went directly to BritBox and they

    1. Were much easier to access help than Roku was
    2. Politely agreed to pass my feedback to the development team.

    I had previously discussed this problem with Amazon Prime Video and I noticed a big improvement soon after.

6 Replies

  • AvsGunnar's avatar
    AvsGunnar
    Community Streaming Expert
    8 months ago

    Ananisapta 

    I watch Shetland on Britbox through Prime Video on my Roku devices.  The subtitles/closed captioning seem to work fine there. (provides both sound descriptions and the spoken speech).

    If there a particular episode you have recently seen this on? (I can check for similar behavior).

    I am assuming you are probably using Britbox on the Roku Channel since addressed issue attributed to Roku.

  • andyross's avatar
    andyross
    Roku Guru
    8 months ago

    This is normal Closed Captioning. I doubt there is an alternate feed, and it would be confusing if there are multiples listed for a language.

    On Max, "Get Millie Black" uses open captioning with just the spoken words due to the Jamaica setting and local accents used.

    • Ananisapta's avatar
      Ananisapta
      Reel Rookie
      8 months ago

      Thanks! I went directly to BritBox and they

      1. Were much easier to access help than Roku was
      2. Politely agreed to pass my feedback to the development team.

      I had previously discussed this problem with Amazon Prime Video and I noticed a big improvement soon after.

      • JWS9518's avatar
        JWS9518
        Roku Guru
        8 months ago
        You may be turning on closed captions vs subtitles.  Some apps may have both options or they may have only one of the two depending on the channel.
         
        Closed captions are designed for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, closed captions include the spoken dialogue, as well as other audio elements like background sounds and speaker changes. 
         
        Subtitles are for viewers who can hear the audio but don't understand the language, subtitles translate the spoken dialogue into another language. They don't include non-speech elements like background sounds or speaker changes