Comparing good subtitling with bad subtitling
A clear case of penny-wise and pound-foolish
The million dollar Bollywood production Devdas...
many nominations,
but spoilt by bad subtitling. For a few hundred dollars more, perfect subtitles would have been possible.
One (compulsory) reads the text flying by,
but the time given is not enough.
There is simply to much text (apart from other shortcomings). The result: this beautiful movie cannot be enjoyed...
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The next files together with the commentary clear up
a widespread misunderstanding about subtitling...
Badly subtitled documentary clip
You'll hardly be able to watch the visuals because as soon as we see text we involuntarily start to read.
And reading these subtitles takes up almost all of your attention...
And don't forget: translated subtitles are often worse.
The badly subtitled clip:
The same clip subtitled well
Here you can read the slightly condensed texts and watch the visuals, that are always more important:
The same clip timed correctly
by a Compact Course student after only 4 weeks
(random text as subtitles)...
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Another example: Othello subtitled badly and well
Badly subtitled
Othello clip
The first two subtitles are okay, but then follow the bad and the ugly ones: many incues are not right, the text
is not condensed, the intervals are wrong, groups of words are not kept together.
To be able to get all the text in the subtitles, it's chopped up in many,
short subtitles. The viewer can just about read the subtitles and has
hardly time to watch the video file.
These subtitles are seen more and more because they are even cheaper than normal, good quality subtitling. Everything is more or less typed out.
The Othello clip subtitled well
Here the art of subtitling has been at work. The text is condensed and as a result the viewer gets the essential information and can also watch the video file.
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