Premature subtitles

Howard Woods

Howard Woods

New Member
On our hdr-Fox t2, we have subtitles on permanently to help with our failing hearing. There is just one problem with some programmes, notably with replays of old Midsummer Murders! We notice that when we rewind a live play, or run a recording, the subtitles can appear before the actor actually mouths the words - sometimes two or three scenes early - can seriously ruin a climax!
For mainly this reason, we are thinking of buying a new Humax - but we would be extremely disappointed if the new gadget had the same problem.
So can anyone tell me if they know whether the more recent boxes do, or do not, have this problem?
 
I don't know the technical details of how the subtitle stream is sync'ed to the audio/video streams inside the .TS wrapper. It may not be possible to retain sync under trick play conditions.
 
Yes, it's infuriating. It seems to be worse on SD. We have a Humax 1010 satellite box as well as two T2s and I'd say that it's not as bad, but it still does it. It seems to be to do with the system not counting quiet time for some reason. With things like Big Bang Theory where there is nearly always talk it doesn't happen much - with MM and the like, pain! There are occasions where it's so annoying I turn them off until we get to a place I miss something because it's not clear, at which point it's "subs on, skip back, continue".
My solution to resync them 'inline' is to briefly press rewind and then play, so you just step it back a couple of seconds, and I try to do this just before I think the characters are going to speak. That doesn't stop the 'spoiler' aspect of course; I just concentrate on the picture (that is of course where the current interest is) and try to not read the subtitles.

I can't answer for the much newer boxes (I guess the 5000 would be the current one) but they seem to have other useability issues, so it may become a frying pan or fire choice. This will be a big factor in my next box choice and if another make doesn't have this problem I will certainly look favourably on them instead of another Humax.
 
MikeSh said:
Yes, it's infuriating. It seems to be worse on SD. We have a Humax 1010 satellite box as well as two T2s and I'd say that it's not as bad, but it still does it. It seems to be to do with the system not counting quiet time for some reason. With things like Big Bang Theory where there is nearly always talk it doesn't happen much - with MM and the like, pain! There are occasions where it's so annoying I turn them off until we get to a place I miss something because it's not clear, at which point it's "subs on, skip back, continue".
My solution to resync them 'inline' is to briefly press rewind and then play, so you just step it back a couple of seconds, and I try to do this just before I think the characters are going to speak. That doesn't stop the 'spoiler' aspect of course; I just concentrate on the picture (that is of course where the current interest is) and try to not read the subtitles.

I can't answer for the much newer boxes (I guess the 5000 would be the current one) but they seem to have other useability issues, so it may become a frying pan or fire choice. This will be a big factor in my next box choice and if another make doesn't have this problem I will certainly look favourably on them instead of another Humax.
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Yes, we use your rewind/play method, and yes, this a big factor in our next choice.
 
Howard Woods said:
So can anyone tell me if they know whether the more recent boxes do, or do not, have this problem?
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I haven't tried the Humax FVPs but the HDR-2000T/1800T also has sync issues of subtitles on playback and like the HDR-FOX it seams to vary from programme to programme, with some channels always having issues and others being not so bad. The Humax youview boxes have no issues in this respect but of course are rather bare bones concerning other features as far as a DTT PVR goes.

Black Hole said:
It may not be possible to retain sync under trick play conditions.
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It is possible. The vestels and youview (Humax and Huewai) boxes are useable where the HDR-FOX| loses sync for the same broadcast of a programme. The youview subtitles appear faultless and sometimes the vestels just need a few seconds to resync after fast forwarding but are useable.
 
Luke said:
I haven't tried the Humax FVPs but the HDR-2000T/1800T also has sync issues of subtitles on playback and like the HDR-FOX it seams to vary from programme to programme, with some channels always having issues and others being not so bad. The Humax youview boxes have no issues in this respect but of course are rather bare bones concerning other features as far as a DTT PVR goes.

It is possible. The vestels and youview (Humax and Huewai) boxes are useable where the HDR-FOX| loses sync for the same broadcast of a programme. The youview subtitles appear faultless and sometimes the vestels just need a few seconds to resync after fast forwarding but are useable.
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Thank you for a reassuring reply - does it mean our subtitle problems would be over if we go for a pvr-5000t?
 
We have given up recording non BBC SD channels due to the sub title sync problems. We have had no subtitle sync problems on HD channels apart from the fact that they are a bit small on our 24" and 32" TVs.
 
JimD said:
We have given up recording non BBC SD channels due to the sub title sync problems. We have had no subtitle sync problems on HD channels apart from the fact that they are a bit small on our 24" and 32" TVs.
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Hello JimD
Are you saying you have a pvr-5000t, and that it has the premature subtitle problem ?
 
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