Really HD (and subtitles) Ready? [s] (via Stageandsign’s Blog)
This is a must read article for anyone living in the UK interested in the status of subtitled TV content on HD broadcast channels. I wish it was better news than it is. Have a read:
![Really HD Ready? [s]](https://stageandsign.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/virgin-media-chat.jpg?w=160&h=100)
Classic chicken and the egg scenario. It is not too dissimilar to the early history of closed captioning in the USA as I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong). Before automatically being included in a TV set, decoders were required to access the closed captioning. The sales of decoders would contribute to covering the cost of captioning. However potential customers would only buy them if more captioned content was available to them which could only happen on the increase of sales of the decoder!
With OFCOM’s regulatory policy of channels requiring a greater percentage of subtitled content the greater the audience reach of the channel, we have the same chicken and the egg scenario. For example, I am absolutely a potential HD customer but I am not going to subscribe to an HD channel if subtitles aren’t available to me and if I don’t and others like me don’t, how long will it take for HD channels obtain an audience reach where it will be required legally on the terms of its broadcast license to subtitle content? Many channels thankfully provide subtitled content above their legal requirement, which makes me think OFCOM ought to rethink its strategy anyway – I don’t have the solution but the current one won’t resolve the above issue any time soon. Thoughts anyone?
Wendy Bradley, and 1 other are discussing. 
i heart subtitles 
Liz 11:47 pm on January 31, 2011 Permalink |
I know I have been told how having HD is good. But if not getting subtitles like you say. Then I’m not interested either. I always have subs on when I watch tv. Turning up the volume does not help. You think that subs would not be a problem on HD. They should be there, like most original channels do.
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Wendy Bradley 6:37 am on February 3, 2011 Permalink |
There are new rules for public bodies under the 2010 Equalities Act that apply from April but don’t really start to kick in till April 2011, when they have to set themselves targets for specific actions to take and what data they’re going to publish to show their progress. So a campaign NOW to get Ofcom to set itself a 100% subtitling target…?
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iheartsubtitles 9:49 am on February 3, 2011 Permalink |
I’ll be interested to see what is published in April. 100% subtitling sounds like fantastic goal. The BBC already have that target. But I sometimes wonder if that means quality is forgotten about (that is for another post). I’d rather have 80% quality subtitles than 100% subtitled content of which 20% is badly subtitled. Bad subtitling serves no purpose to anyone. What I’d like to see for the HD channels is that if that channel is established in terms of its SD output that the channel reach is included as part of the HD channel requirement to start subtitling a high amount of content as is already on their SD stream. I do know there are technical issues to overcome but those issues can be overcome and the legal requirement would push a solution to be found quicker than it has.
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Steve 10:27 pm on April 10, 2011 Permalink |
This annoyed me a lot. We had SkyHD for a while and because I never watched any HD channels I never noticed that lack of subtitles on them. Then, Sky flipped their Sky1 HD channel into the position where Sky1 SD was and it took me at least a week to realise that was the reasons that no subtitles were showing.
Generally speaking though, ignoring HD, Sky do have very good subtitles on most of their programmes so I can’t grumble too much.
Great blog by the way, we all heart subtitles!
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iheartsubtitles 5:08 pm on April 26, 2011 Permalink |
Hi Steve thanks for the info. Glad to hear Sky have good subtitles but let’s hope they can apply the same level of service to Sky HD. Why should it be missed out?
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