Forum Discussion

TurboZilla's avatar
TurboZilla
Reel Rookie
5 years ago

White captions

Hey guys!

I've see few other discussions about this bu they all are quite old so I'm trying to see whether there are any updates/solutions about this.

So, got my Roku Streaming Stick Plus few days ago and love it. Only issue is I use subtitles a lot and it seems the apps that use Roku captions systems are showing grey subtitles rather than white ones. They are definitely hard to read.

Is there any workaround or do you know whether there's any plan to address it in a future OS update? A caption "brightness" setting would be very nice.

Thanks in advance for your help. :smileyvery-happy:

21 Replies

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  • makaiguy's avatar
    makaiguy
    Community Streaming Expert
    5 years ago

    From Roku home screen: Settings.. Accessibility.. Captions style

    There you can set the default CC options.  While viewing a channel, the * key on your remote is the default means of accessing options like CC.

    Note that some channels don't observe the Roku defaults and utilize their own CC settings, presumably so they can have uniform settings across all the different platforms on which they run.  On some channels you may have to set things up by logging into your account on their website; on others you may have to use other remote keys -- up or down cursor keys are common choices.

    • MEMOM's avatar
      MEMOM
      Channel Surfer
      5 years ago

      Roku has had problems with captions being worthless for over a year. They do not care. and that is discrimination against old people and disabled. 

      • TurboZilla's avatar
        TurboZilla
        Reel Rookie
        5 years ago

        I agree that this seems to be about not caring too much. I've see few complaints in the past few years and honestly I don't understand why they can't just add some setting to make captions brighter, or just full white. Maybe OS 10? 🙄

    • TurboZilla's avatar
      TurboZilla
      Reel Rookie
      5 years ago

      I've tried any possible customisation but as far as I can see the apps that do observe Roku caption settings render gray subtitles rather than white ones, even when the color is explicitly set to white in Captions style. As said I find them quite difficult to read.

      What's annoying is apps that don't observe Roku caption settings, like Netflix, have proper white subtitles.

      • makaiguy's avatar
        makaiguy
        Community Streaming Expert
        5 years ago

        What do you have the Roku text opacity set to?  For brightest text, set it to 100%.

  • Ponto50's avatar
    Ponto50
    Reel Rookie
    5 years ago

    Stilll waiting for a soluton to this gray subtitles thing.

    Really annoying that "white" means "just gray" on the device.

    • RokuKariza-D's avatar
      RokuKariza-D
      Retired Moderator
      5 years ago

      Hi Ponto50

      Thanks for the post.

      For clarification, have you tried customizing your subtitles through Settings > Accessibility > Caption style? We would recommend starting there then let us know if there's any difference after. You can refer to this Support article for detailed instructions: How do I enable closed captioning?

      Please keep us posted.

      All the best,
      Kariza

      • Ponto50's avatar
        Ponto50
        Reel Rookie
        5 years ago

        I own a Roku Premiere 4K (also a a Roku Express) and there's no Acessibility on settings menu, but there's a subtitle option that let me adjust the color.

        The problem is that the "white" option is just a gray (not even close to real white) and all the apps that use roku subtitle settings stick to that color.

        Netflix, that manages its own subs, shows a bright white, perfectly readable, making me believe it's not a hardware limitation, but a software one.

        It's really frustrating trying to use Plex on Roku (this one uses roku subtitle settings exclusively) given the poorly visible subtitles.