TV Home Forum

Bad subtitling

My bugbear (February 2016)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
DA
davidhorman
The subtitles on Gogglebox were about a minute out of sync last night. Would've made a total nonsense of it to someone relying on them.

I do like it on the live ones where a tricky name comes up and there's a pause in the subtitles, then they finally come up with "this person" or somesuch.
DV
dvboy
Does anyone notice on BBC iPlayer sometimes a subtitle is black text therefore difficult to read over the grey background and picture?
JA
JAS84
Some of the strangest subtitles seen in the past few years:

SUBTITLES BY ITFC, WHO DO NOT HAVE A LATIN EDUCATION
- This Morning, ITV, when a musical act at the end sang in Latin

TRANSLATION: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
- BBC News, BBC News Channel, during a French to English translation

(SPEAKS WELSH)
- Pobol y Cwm, S4C, really?!

The arch bitch of Canterbury
- BBC News, BBC News Channel

Email us, subtitling@redbeemedia.com.au
- Click, BBC News Channel

(SIRENS MIX WITH THEME MUSIC)
- The Bill, Drama

(SINGING)
- TOTP2, BBC Four
What's the point of Pobol y Cwm having subtitles if they're not going to subtitle the Welsh language dialogue? Absolutely stupid. Same goes for TOTP2, where you'd expect the subtitles to be the song lyrics. And as for the This Morning example... lol.



I assume the Click example was the wrong email address?
SP
Steve in Pudsey
S4C always used to have two separate subtitle streams, Welsh for the hard of hearing, English translation.
MA
madmusician
The other famous and oft-quoted example of an erroneous subtitle is the suggestion that "there will now be a moment's violence in memory of the Queen Mother". Very Happy
DavidWhitfield and Brekkie gave kudos
SC
Si-Co
During the extended coverage of Diana's death, the subtitles read 'crapped' instead of 'clapped' at one point. I can't remember the context but it read something like "The crowd crapped - clapped - when such and such happened".
IS
Inspector Sands
Here's some odd subtitling from last week that someone on YouTube spotted.... they subtitled a word that wasn't actually heard (possibly NSFW)

Newer posts