Apple TV's subtitles are awful.

Submitted by cmrdgkr t3_121q76u in television

I don't know if this is only an issue with their Korean subs, but the experience of using them is starting to wear thin.

Having watched several shows with subtitles on there like Ted Lasso, Physical, and Shrinking they all suffer from the same issue. During any given episode about 5% of the subtitles that are show are broken. You'll see the characters talking, wonder where the subtitles are, and then the subtitle will flash so fast there is no hope of reading it. Other times, they'll be on time, character starts talking subtitles pop up, but just flash again and disappear while the character keeps talking. This probably happens 10-20 times in every show.

However Shrinking is an even greater offender. The subtitles are just objectively awful. Whenever the term 'raw dogging' is brought up, the Korean subtitle for it is 'trolling'. Now, you might think, well he thinks she's trolling him, but that isn't the joke.

At one point one character turns to another and asks them to explain what 'raw dogging' means and the Korean subtitles are written 'swearing on the internet'. This is just intentionally bad work.

For people who use subtitles in other languages, are they equally as bad as this?

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12INCHVOICES t1_jdn187p wrote

My partner reads Spanish subs while we watch Ted Lasso and hasn't complained about them specifically. I know that on one of our devices the audio/subtitles will start to lag after a while so maybe it's a hardware issue (not the poor translating but the timing issues maybe)

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdncpos wrote

I can't imagine it. We have a TCL smart TV we use the app through. Also subtitles on Disney and Netflix don't have any issues. If there are performance issues, it'd just be a result of just poor work by Apple.

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felixsapiens t1_jdp9exl wrote

Have you tried plugging an Apple TV into your TCL? No problem with subtitles there. TCL’s are reasonably cheap tvs unfortunately - it’s likely a problem with the app and the tv in some way. Might be a bug in the app in which case report to Apple, presumably they update these things.

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdq17eu wrote

A year and a half ago I reported the issues with Ted Lasso's subtitles. They made a point of having a customer care person or whatever call me. I spent time explaining the issues we had with the subtitles. It's a year and a half later, and it's still a mess.

I've no interest in buying an Apple TV.

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Polythene_Man t1_jdq6h92 wrote

I guarantee you the issue is the software on your TCL. You can disagree and say it’s apple’s fault but you’re wrong. If you used an actual appleTV, or any high quality steaming device, you would not be having these issues. If you’ve been dealing with it for at least a year and a half wouldn’t it be worth it to invest in some real hardware?

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Mentoman72 t1_jdraf05 wrote

I can vouch for the same problems on a Roku device.

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdqjf9i wrote

So the fact that every other streaming app works fine and apple doesn't is the fault of the TV and not apple? Yeah, totally makes sense.

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Mentoman72 t1_jdra2sy wrote

I hear you that sounds fricken annoying and just saying "buy an apple product" is not helpful and comes across as super dick ridey.

BTW I had issues with them too on a Roku device. Pachinko was borderline unwatchable because I don't fricken speak Korean and I had the same issues you had. It's an Apple problem, it's not your TV.

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lorZzeus t1_jds42p8 wrote

Not sure why you're being downvoted here. It is Apple TV+'s fault, not the user or their hardware. Also, telling someone to spend a lot of money on something just to eventually solve this problem is rude, in my opinion.

As someone who has the same problem as you, I have a suggestion that could help or not: try watching with the closed captions subtitles instead of the standard subtitles. I noticed these subtitles aren't as bugged and "vanish" fewer times.

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Polythene_Man t1_jds6p44 wrote

You won’t “eventually have this problem” if you buy an AppleTV.

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lorZzeus t1_jdsdmz1 wrote

True, but you asked OP:

>If you’ve been dealing with it for at least a year and a half wouldn’t it be worth it to invest in some real hardware?

You aren't specifically telling OP to buy an AppleTV.

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Polythene_Man t1_jdsen9u wrote

Yeah cause I don’t represent apple, why would I care what device he chooses. Just get something besides your tv’s built in software. Nvidia shield, fireTV, appleTV… they all work.

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lorZzeus t1_jdsvzfb wrote

I'm not an Apple representative either, but I'm pretty sure only Apple TV will work 100%. The alternatives you mentioned might work or not, that's why I said they would "eventually solve this problem".

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jduic1t wrote

Unfortunately Korean doesn't come with CC captions so not really an option.

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lorZzeus t1_jdxhq11 wrote

Yes, it does. I just checked on the TV show Servant, episode 3. They are there, right beneath standard korean.

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdxi59d wrote

My mistake, I probably misremebered with disney, disney doesn't have CC. We'll try the CC next for Korean and see if it does the same thing or not.

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Lil-Bill420 t1_jdqat4a wrote

Buy a Roku then. Apps on even the best smart TVs are notoriously bad so that’s probably the issue. You can get a Roku for under $20 and use the apps on there instead. I’ve been using one for years and everything runs smoothly for me

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badgarok725 t1_jdqgedk wrote

SmartTV is not an issue with TCL, it’s just Roku OS or GoogleTV

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HeatherKathryn t1_jdn79ls wrote

I had this issue quite a bit when watching Pachinko. Multiple times I had to rewind because I had no idea what a character said

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdnc2rh wrote

Haven't done that yet because we'd need English for the Korean bits and English and Korean for the Japanese bits. My kingdom for a streaming service that would support 2 subtitles on screen natively.

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koreth t1_jdnoh55 wrote

Doesn’t help with Apple shows, but for Netflix, there is a browser extension you can use to get two subtitle languages at once. I wish this was a built-in feature on all the streaming services.

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdnrvut wrote

Yeah but I'd like native app support so that it could be used from within the app on a smart TV. Just let me choose more than one subtitle and display them. Let me worry about screen real estate if you think it won't be optimal.

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felixsapiens t1_jdp99sv wrote

What device do you watch on?

I’ve had no problems with subtitles using an Apple TV

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HeatherKathryn t1_jds42xa wrote

I was using Chrome on my laptop. Other browsers don’t seem to work as well and I have no smart tv tech

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AshamedFortune1 t1_jdn9ndm wrote

Sometimes the subtitles on pachinko would just make my whole tv freeze. I feel like they were trying to do something too complicated for their platform to handle.

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HeatherKathryn t1_jdnatc0 wrote

I agree. I somehow made the Japanese dialogue in English, and the Korean was in Korean, and English subtitles for the Korean but none for the Japanese. I couldn’t figure out how to get it back to original audio with all English subtitles, and my tv didn’t like that it at all

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Khiva t1_jdpo476 wrote

So happy you're watching that. Honestly one of the straight up best shows I've ever seen, no exaggeration.

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KeyP2021 t1_jdu8swd wrote

On the Apple TV device, multicolored subtitles were present for Korean and Japanese and they worked quite well, could this be an issue with a different streaming device?

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g1ng3rk1d5 t1_jdn2nly wrote

What are you watching on? I can't watch on my Roku because the subtitles either don't pop up or are out of sync with the show, but when I watch on my Xbox everything is fine.

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdnbuc2 wrote

We watch on a TCL Smart TV through the Apple TV App. It should be more than powerful enough to display subtitles. This happens both through wifi and while having an ethernet cable into the back of the TV, so it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the connection itself.

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Fabbyfubz t1_jdpcsux wrote

I have a TCL Roku TV and it does the same thing with English subtitles on Apple TV. It's like the subtitles are being loaded separately and after a few minutes of dialogue, it starts lagging and going out of sync.

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdq2nds wrote

That would make sense if it was only subtitles showing up late (lagging) and then blinking out the moment they're meant to go off anyway. But we also have subtitles that appear to show up on time, and blink out immediately. It would also make more sense if the subtitles were showing up randomly late. If a subtitle is meant to be up for 2 seconds, lag would mean it would randomly show up at any point during those 2 seconds. Meaning you wouldn't just see subs blinking on and off, you'd see subs that come on and just don't last as long as they should. e.g. it's a .5 second late so it's only up for 1.5 seconds making it a quick read. These are always blink on and off.

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[deleted] t1_jdpfmmz wrote

[deleted]

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cmrdgkr OP t1_jdq1hft wrote

If it was a TV issue, then Netflix, Disney and other services wouldn't work fine. If those work and Apple doesn't, then it's because Apple produces a crappy app.

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itsShane91 t1_jdpukxn wrote

It's not just Apple, it's every streaming service. As someone who watches everything with subtitles, the amount of times they don't actually match up to what is being said, miss parts off, unnecessarily censor things and give big story spoilers. I'm lucky I only use subtitles for personal choice, I feel bad for people who genuinely need them to watch TV.

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ThePoundingOfMyHeart t1_jdx81dy wrote

They most likely outsource subtitling which is weird since it seems easier if it was done in house?

But yeah I’ve seen [inaudible] replaced for a fairly common word that was said very clearly.

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Resistyrox t1_jdndtax wrote

HBO Max subtitles take up the whole fucking screen.

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SuperBaconLOL t1_jdnl2wb wrote

You can change the size of the subtitles through HBO Max's settings on most devices.

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APiousCultist t1_jdt5dmu wrote

After watching all seasons of The Americans I set my subtitles to 'visible from space' size and it's wonderful. Does it look stupid? Yes. Is it effortlessly easy to read the subtitles now? Also yes. I can read normal sized ones just fine, but there's absolutely a processing cost to that still. Switching to small discreet ones is like switching to a book written in a fancy font. You can read it just fine, but it's not as smooth and effortless to do so.

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dejv913 t1_jdnnqvo wrote

Nope. SkyShowtime beats it... I'm in Europe but watch with English subtitles... They take up like 30% of the screen and have black background... And no way to change any of it...

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Premislaus t1_jdqbbcg wrote

You're lucky, some SkyShowtime shows don't even have subtitles. Like not even English.

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koreth t1_jdnovhq wrote

On Liaison, when one of the characters starts speaking French, the English subtitle will very often say, “[Speaking English]” which is surprisingly distracting.

Netflix does a much better job with subtitles IMO.

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lorZzeus t1_jds8z8a wrote

I have Apple TV+ for two weeks now, but can't tell yet if the subtitles in my language are that bad or not. I'll have to watch more episodes and more TV shows to check that out.

We share the "broken" subtitles issue, though, and we're not alone. A quick search on the internet will prove it and usually it's because the user is not using an Apple product to watch their streaming service. That's right, Apple TV+ streaming service has issues in non-Apple products!

I can only watch Apple TV+ in a computer's browser, because their Windows app is only available for Windows 11 users and I'm a Windows 10 user. Their android app doesn't appear in my android box play store, nor in my smartphone's play store. So, besides the subtitles issue, where sometimes it shows up and stays for 0.1 seconds, I can't change the subtitles' font size, font, background, etc. In some browsers I couldn't even choose the subtitle and the audio for the video, but I found out it was related to the browsers' ad blocker. Another thing is they limit their content a lot in their browser version. I basically just have access to their original TV shows and movies, so it seems like I'm using a trial version of the app where I don't have access to their full catalogue and can't customize my experience by changing a simple thing like a subtitle's font size. Fortunately there are browser extensions that let me costumize the subtitles, or else I would have quit Apple TV+ already.

In conclusion, I feel like I'm a third rate client for Apple, because I don't have any Apple product to use their streaming service and I'm seriously considering to watch their contents in other ways.

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Everest_95 t1_jdnic28 wrote

NowTvs are awful too. If someone is speaking another language they just say 'Speaking Language' and block out the actual subtitles so I don't know what's being said.

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Cyyyyk t1_jdo14c1 wrote

Apple TV+ interface has so many issues it is hard to know where to start, but another subtitle issue is that sometimes they just stop playing entirely and you have to restart the show to get them back. Normally that not a big deal except that getting a show to start in Apple TV+ is usually about a 5 minute ordeal.

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vitorgrs t1_jdpswgm wrote

It's fine here in PT-BR and on Samsung TV. Never had problems. I actually like the subtitles there because you can customize more than some other apps (like Prime Video).

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KeyP2021 t1_jdu8m9y wrote

I had similar issues in other languages, often they also disappear but rewinding they come back. No swear words "censorship" though. I also noticed that on streaming devices other than the Apple TV 4K, for example, the Fire TV or Google TV, only SDH versions of the subtitles are available.

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TerraInvicta1776 t1_jdrlanz wrote

I watch all the shows using English subtitles, and haven't noticed an issue. In fact I love the Apple TV subtitles for their customization options. You can adjust size, foreground and background colors and transparencies. Maybe it's just that specific language provider that's lacking.

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SynthD t1_jdo56yn wrote

Wa tha fuck dyuh need sub’i’ules fa on Ted lassuh? It relly eseh tu noo wa they sey.

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