Netflix introduces cleaner subtitles focused only on spoken dialogue

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: Subtitle use is on the rise, and Netflix is catering to the trend with a new viewing options. Up to this point, watching with subtitles on Netflix in the original language involved toggling the Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH/CC) option. In addition to spoken dialogue, this setting also creates subtitles for audio cues like dramatic music swells and environmental noises, and also labels speaker names.

The new option, which will first appear on new titles coming to Netflix such as season five of You, shows only spoken dialogue – no audio cues or speaker names. Supported titles will feature two subtitle options in English: English (CC), which is the original format with all the extras, and the new pared down option simply labeled English.

Worth noting is the fact that the expanded feature won't be limited to English. Moving forward, the new format will be available on all new Netflix originals in every language offered. It's also possible to customize subtitles by changing the size and font for improved readability.

Subtitles may not seem like that big of a deal, especially if you aren't hard of hearing, but their use is far more widespread than you might suspect. According to a 2024 survey by Preply, half of all Americans watch content with subtitles enabled most of the time and 55 percent believe it's harder to hear dialogue in shows and movies than it used to be.

This is in line with Netflix's own observations. According to the streaming giant, nearly half of all viewing hours in the US happen with subtitles or captions enabled.

As someone that doesn't watch with subtitles on (I find them too distracting), the statistics are rather surprising. I would never have guessed subtitle usage to be so high. Do you use them regularly, and if so, for what purpose? Watching content in public or while someone is sleeping? To help with foreign language flicks? Or do you just feel that dialogue really is harder to discern nowadays?

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Netflix introduces cleaner subtitles focused only on spoken dialogue

 

[mgwerner]

I will miss "ominous music" when soft traffic sounds are in the scene.

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

I will miss "ominous music" when soft traffic sounds are in the scene.

Or my favorite "quirky jazz plays" during the opening [insert show]. It always said that in the opening of Dexter.

 

[NumberNine]

 

[The Talking Tech]

Thank goodness.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Well, my hearing isn’t what it used to be and I enable subtitles for just about everything except sports.

Saying that, it really wasn’t that much of an annoyance to “have” to read the extra descriptions… I can read pretty well, and am adept at ignoring text I don’t want/need - read into that what you want!

 

[psycros]

"..55 percent believe it's harder to hear dialogue in shows and movies than it used to be."

It is. TV and movie sound engineering these days is terrible, with everything going to bass, bass and more bass. Midrange is squelched terribly. I stopped going to theaters a couple years ago because I couldn't understand half the dialogue. I remember watching The Expanse and a number of other shows with subtitles on - there was no other way to hear quiet speaking. I've even tried "clear speech" TV audio settings and it barely helps. One thing that also isn't being factored in are the amount of foreign shows and films being consumed. Anime alone accounts for extensive use of subtitles with a pretty big audience.

 

[MarkHughes]

I have menieres disease that makes me mostly deaf in one ear and always need the subtitles, I'm looking forward to trying this out, With less text to read it might allow more time to see the action.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

"..55 percent believe it's harder to hear dialogue in shows and movies than it used to be."

It is. TV and movie sound engineering these days is terrible, with everything going to bass, bass and more bass. Midrange is squelched terribly. I stopped going to theaters a couple years ago because I couldn't understand half the dialogue. I remember watching The Expanse and a number of other shows with subtitles on - there was no other way to hear quiet speaking. I've even tried "clear speech" TV audio settings and it barely helps. One thing that also isn't being factored in are the amount of foreign shows and films being consumed. Anime alone accounts for extensive use of subtitles with a pretty big audience.

Agreed. It's been like this now for the past better of almost 2 decades. The loud parts are too loud - hearing damaging too loud, so you turn it down. The soft spoken parts are too soft to hear, so you turn the volume up. Now it's too loud again and it hurts your ears so you turn it down. Now you're at a part where the current volume is good, the spoken audio is good and the background music isn't playing or is quiet to not cause issues....then someone whispers or starts talking softly and now you can't hear it so you turn it up....DAMN IT! IT'S TOO LOUD AGAIN, BUT THIS TIME THE MUSIC IS ALSO SO LOUD YOU CAN'T HEAR WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING WITH ALL THE LOUD ACTION IN THE SHOW/MOVIE GOING ON! So you turn it down again....

You know what, F this. Keep the volume at a level where the action isn't so loud it hurts your ears and just use subtitles. All these retards that do the sound engineering these days suck at it.

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

"..55 percent believe it's harder to hear dialogue in shows and movies than it used to be."

It is. TV and movie sound engineering these days is terrible, with everything going to bass, bass and more bass. Midrange is squelched terribly. I stopped going to theaters a couple years ago because I couldn't understand half the dialogue. I remember watching The Expanse and a number of other shows with subtitles on - there was no other way to hear quiet speaking. I've even tried "clear speech" TV audio settings and it barely helps. One thing that also isn't being factored in are the amount of foreign shows and films being consumed. Anime alone accounts for extensive use of subtitles with a pretty big audience.

I was actually discussing this with Shawn as he was writing it. He had asked me if I use subtitles. I said I do most of the time because whether it is games,TV shows, or movies, it seems like sounds design is just an after thought now. I can't tell you how many times I have missed dialog because either the background music was too loud or there were ambient sound effects (wind, storms, gunfire, explosions, etc) overriding the dialog. At least with games, you can go and adjust sound and dialog levels, (even though it sometimes doesn't work during static cut scenes), but with shows and movies, there is really no good excise for poor sound design.

I joked that anymore it's almost like sound design is handled by the production staff members with the least experience--Interns with a resume that says, "Experience: Backyard DJ."

 

[Theinsanegamer]

"..55 percent believe it's harder to hear dialogue in shows and movies than it used to be."

It is. TV and movie sound engineering these days is terrible, with everything going to bass, bass and more bass. Midrange is squelched terribly. I stopped going to theaters a couple years ago because I couldn't understand half the dialogue. I remember watching The Expanse and a number of other shows with subtitles on - there was no other way to hear quiet speaking. I've even tried "clear speech" TV audio settings and it barely helps. One thing that also isn't being factored in are the amount of foreign shows and films being consumed. Anime alone accounts for extensive use of subtitles with a pretty big audience.

Thank you for putting this in writing. I've spent years trying to describe it.
I run subtitles in everything. There is SO much background noise I cant concentrate on anything being said.

 

[Axeia]

Great way to pick up new languages, audio in a foreign language and the subtitles in the language you know.
Added bonus: You learn how to spell words.
And for that, you don't know need the audio ques - they're just a distraction. It can be useful for heavy accents as well, I sometimes struggle a bit with very thick accents.

And yes, audio mixing has definitely gotten worse. I miss the days where I had a 5.1 set with a dedicated remote where I could up the 'center' channel. Usually resulted in easier to hear dialogue. With the way things are going we'll probably have some AI audio filter sometime soon to patch up what should have been done properly at the source to begin with.

 

[TooQik]

I have menieres disease that makes me mostly deaf in one ear and always need the subtitles, I'm looking forward to trying this out, With less text to read it might allow more time to see the action.

I agree. Fast paced action movies are the worst if you're trying to read subtitles and keep track of what's actually happening on the screen. This will hopefully allow people a bit more time to watch the movie.

 

[lnorthe]

Great way to pick up new languages, audio in a foreign language and the subtitles in the language you know.
Added bonus: You learn how to spell words.
And for that, you don't know need the audio ques - they're just a distraction. It can be useful for heavy accents as well, I sometimes struggle a bit with very thick accents.

And yes, audio mixing has definitely gotten worse. I miss the days where I had a 5.1 set with a dedicated remote where I could up the 'center' channel. Usually resulted in easier to hear dialogue. With the way things are going we'll probably have some AI audio filter sometime soon to patch up what should have been done properly at the source to begin with.

My new JBL receiver has the ability to adjust/boost the level/volume of individual speakers just like you state. This helps with the dialog. I also boost my left and right back speakers as high as it will go because those are background sounds that tend to be soft.

 

[lnorthe]

I also watch everything with the subtitles expect for the news since they speak clearly and there is no music to compete with. There are some You Tube videos about how the spoken dialog in a movie is no longer top of mind to whoever is doing the sound mixing.

 

[Antias]

Great way to pick up new languages, audio in a foreign language and the subtitles in the language you know.
Added bonus: You learn how to spell words.
And for that, you don't know need the audio ques - they're just a distraction. It can be useful for heavy accents as well, I sometimes struggle a bit with very thick accents.

And yes, audio mixing has definitely gotten worse. I miss the days where I had a 5.1 set with a dedicated remote where I could up the 'center' channel. Usually resulted in easier to hear dialogue. With the way things are going we'll probably have some AI audio filter sometime soon to patch up what should have been done properly at the source to begin with.

I have a 7.1.2 setup and YES, sometimes I, like you, will adjust the centre channel higher to promote the voices in whatever I'm watching (including adjusting the equaliser), HOWEVER, this really only works when the original is encoded correctly with distinctly seperate channels and the dialog being centrally focussed. Sadly that is not the case and the dialog audio is often split over many channels, seemingly indiscriminantly.

 

[FaTaL]

Unless you're deaf/hard of hearing, I hate people who use subtitles.... you might as well read a book

 

[RudyBob]

I can't hear a lot of dialog and accents are harder yet because of age, or so I thought.

 

[RudyBob]

Unless you're deaf/hard of hearing, I hate people who use subtitles.... you might as well read a book

You hate people for that?

 

[Squid Surprise]

Unless you're deaf/hard of hearing, I hate people who use subtitles.... you might as well read a book

What's wrong with books? And unless that person is watching with you, forcing you to also watch with subtitles, why do you hate them?

 

[MisterSpock]

When you can’t even mix audio so that a pair of good three-way vintage loudspeakers with hi-fi amplifier *and* a twelve-band equalizer could separate out dialogue from scene events and music, you need a new sound engineering philosophy.

You wanna remember how good sound engineering used to be? Watch some classic movies and television. Compare Wrath of Khan to Star Trek: Lens Flares (2009). Audio quality is dreadfully bad in the latter.

 

[Subset6]

In games as well. First game that got me to do this was Prey 2017. The phantoms dialog could only be understood with subtitles, kinda a neat little thing. Used them 100% now as to not miss things.

 

[Strontium]

Now if they would make not having the subtitles move around the screen an option that would be great.

 

[New Day]

Now if they would make not having the subtitles move around the screen an option that would be great.

Yeah, contrast and readability....but perhaps also anticipating eye movement, likely of younger viewers whose eyes move on ball bearings and parabolically?.....

 

[zburnham]

I never have trouble with subtitles. How long does it take to read a sentence or two? Like half a second. Maybe y'all should learn to read faster.