New survey on TV subtitles: have your say
Posted by Ian Noon on November 4, 2009
Image courtesy of RNID
When I ask deaf young people what their pet peeves are, invariably they mention the quality of subtitles on TV. So I was pretty pleased to see that RNID have commissioned some research to look at what people think about subtitles. And they’re currently asking deaf people to feed in their views to help with their future campaign work on this. It includes some interesting questions about whether it’s more important to have speed or quality when it comes to live subtitles. Where do you stand on the trade off?
I’ve filled it in and taken the opportunity to have my annual whinge about subtitles on the X Factor… Why not have your say and help make a difference?
And if you feel really outraged about particular programmes with rubbish subtitles, there’s some information on NDCS’s website about how to complain to individual broadcasters. Go on, make a fuss, you know you want to…
MM said
Deaf people have had contacts at TV channels since day one, in my time when we complained the subtitles would serve Serbians better than British, all they did was invite us to the TV centre for free coffee and a walk about, in deference we DID see the subtitlers themselves and saw how difficult their job was, now, you won’t see a person at all, because the increasing use of software is used to translate speech to text, not people. How do you lobby software ? If they stop using it, subtitling will plummet on TV, there aren’t the people, and the cost would be prohibitive to TV channels. I Understand rights issues, but money talks louder ! Perhaps lobby the state to pay for the subtitler training, then, TRY and convince TV to pay for them, the state says no they won’t empower an access law with deeds or cash so…… Why listen or use the RNID ? they jump on any bandwagon, and I can guarantee few if any deaf will work with their survey at all. They will never get the ‘ear’ of deaf people so will not be able to put any significant view from us to anyone.
chrisunderwood said
Hi Ian
Good to see you’re getting such a positive response from the usual suspects.
Keep up the good work
Chris
Matt Keer said
There’s one area at least that has made a rapid and widespread improvement with subtitles – video games. Most of the games I play with my kids on computers or games consoles these days have an option to turn subtitles on – and the subtitles are almost always accurate and easy to read. Also, there’s a fantastic website – http://www.deafgamers.com/ – that reviews games from a deaf perspective.
MM said
Once an RNID man, ALWAYS one eh ?