Blu-ray.com Poll: Subtitle Placement
HomeBlu-ray.com Poll: Subtitle Placement
Posted June 30, 2009 06:01 AM by Juan Calonge
After the success of its recent poll on lossless audio, Blu-ray.com has a new one to gauge members' opinion on a more obscure topic: subtitle placement. If you regularly watch subtitled movies, this concerns you. Please read the brief background information below before voting.
Subtitling basics
Subtitling is a very specialized area of translation. Many papers and books have been written on the topic, but that exceeds the scope of this note.
Suffice it to say that in subtitling, the overriding concerns are legibility and readability. In a few brief seconds, the eyes of the viewer must go down to the bottom of the screen, read the subtitle and go back up to resume watching the movie. There are lots of guidelines and different sets of rules involving subtitle length, layout, typography, syntax, and what occupies us today: subtitle placement.
Where to place the subtitles?
Subtitle placement is very tricky. On one hand, the closer to the image center, the easier to read subtitles are, because the eye must travel a shorter distance. On the other hand, the closer they are, the more they alter the movie picture (which incidentally is one of the main criticisms often raised against subtitling against dubbing).
The easiest-to-read position would be right on the middle on the picture, on the characters' faces. But that would be hideous. On the other hand, subtitles wouldn't alter the picture at all if they were completely outside the picture frame (like captioned operas at the theater), but they can be uncomfortable for the eyes.
Also, some think that Blu-ray subtitles should look exactly like the subtitles on theatrical prints. However, others contend that theatrical subtitles are dictated by the constraints of that format, and that home theater subtitles are different.
Therefore, any decision will be a compromise.
What is now being voted on is where to place the subtitles on movies with a "Scope" aspect ratio (2.20:1 or wider). In those movies, the "active picture" uses only part of BD's native frame, which is 1.78:1. So the question is, should subtitles (specifically, two-line subtitles) be placed inside the "active picture" or can they use the whole "video frame"?
Option 1: Placing all subtitles inside the active picture all the time
With this option, subtitles are placed inside the active picture only.
Above you see a screenshot from François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, with the subtitle as placed in the Criterion Collection Blu-ray. As you can see, both lines are inside the active picture.
Option 2: Placing one line of the subtitle in the active picture and one line below.
This scheme uses the black bar below the picture frame for subtitles.
Above you see a screenshot from Steven Soderbergh's Che – The Argentine, with the subtitle as placed in Optimum's UK Blu-ray. As you can see, the top line of the subtitle is in the active picture, and the bottom line is in the black bar.
This scheme has its pros and its cons.
On the one hand, it intrudes less into the composition, and the text against a black background is much easier to read than against a moving picture.
On the other hand, this isn't how subtitles appear at the theaters, and it's impractical for users of constant image height setups, who can't display the bottom line of a subtitle when it is on the black bar.
Option 3: It makes no difference to me, as either way is fine.
This option is self-explanatory.
Now you have enough information to vote.
Subtitling basics
Subtitling is a very specialized area of translation. Many papers and books have been written on the topic, but that exceeds the scope of this note.
Suffice it to say that in subtitling, the overriding concerns are legibility and readability. In a few brief seconds, the eyes of the viewer must go down to the bottom of the screen, read the subtitle and go back up to resume watching the movie. There are lots of guidelines and different sets of rules involving subtitle length, layout, typography, syntax, and what occupies us today: subtitle placement.
Where to place the subtitles?
Subtitle placement is very tricky. On one hand, the closer to the image center, the easier to read subtitles are, because the eye must travel a shorter distance. On the other hand, the closer they are, the more they alter the movie picture (which incidentally is one of the main criticisms often raised against subtitling against dubbing).
The easiest-to-read position would be right on the middle on the picture, on the characters' faces. But that would be hideous. On the other hand, subtitles wouldn't alter the picture at all if they were completely outside the picture frame (like captioned operas at the theater), but they can be uncomfortable for the eyes.
Also, some think that Blu-ray subtitles should look exactly like the subtitles on theatrical prints. However, others contend that theatrical subtitles are dictated by the constraints of that format, and that home theater subtitles are different.
Therefore, any decision will be a compromise.
What is now being voted on is where to place the subtitles on movies with a "Scope" aspect ratio (2.20:1 or wider). In those movies, the "active picture" uses only part of BD's native frame, which is 1.78:1. So the question is, should subtitles (specifically, two-line subtitles) be placed inside the "active picture" or can they use the whole "video frame"?
Option 1: Placing all subtitles inside the active picture all the time
With this option, subtitles are placed inside the active picture only.
Above you see a screenshot from François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, with the subtitle as placed in the Criterion Collection Blu-ray. As you can see, both lines are inside the active picture.
Option 2: Placing one line of the subtitle in the active picture and one line below.
This scheme uses the black bar below the picture frame for subtitles.
Above you see a screenshot from Steven Soderbergh's Che – The Argentine, with the subtitle as placed in Optimum's UK Blu-ray. As you can see, the top line of the subtitle is in the active picture, and the bottom line is in the black bar.
This scheme has its pros and its cons.
On the one hand, it intrudes less into the composition, and the text against a black background is much easier to read than against a moving picture.
On the other hand, this isn't how subtitles appear at the theaters, and it's impractical for users of constant image height setups, who can't display the bottom line of a subtitle when it is on the black bar.
Option 3: It makes no difference to me, as either way is fine.
This option is self-explanatory.
Now you have enough information to vote.