Subtitles not very good if positioned at the top of screen

Aaron

New Member
I've noticed that if subtitles are forced to the top they don't work very well. Symptoms are some subtitles text going missing, disappearing completely, or refreshing the subtitle line back to start (in live broadcasts).

A better way to show that refreshing subtitle line in a live broadcast problem would be like this:
__________________________
| The quick brown fox jumps over the |
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Shortly after it'll show as:
____________________
| fox jumps over the lazy dog |
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
So the "The quick Brown" bit disappeared and "fox jumps over etc" took its place on the same line. This shouldn't be happening.

This glitching was commonly happening on Euro 2012 live on BBC/ITV, where the broadcaster puts subtitles on the top so it doesn't cover up the football action. And also some movies which I've recorded on CH4, where some subtitles are put on top so as to not cover up the starting credits, some sentences just don't show.

Do I have a faulty HDR-FOX T2, or is Freeview bad at handling subtitles? I'm an ex-Sky customer and never had issues like this.
 
There's a menu setting regarding subtitle size. Variable & fixed. See if that resolves your issue.
Either way, it's probably the broadcasters fault.
 
I'll see if I can record on my phone part of the Team GB football match tomorrow to better demonstrate this, might even send it to Humax to see if it warrants an RMA if it's actually a box fault.
 
I can't say I've noticed any difference myself, but it's under font sizing, so I guess it's meant to change the font.
 
I've just come back to Freeview, patched my HDR-Fox T2 to latest firmware and this problem is still happening unfortunately.
 
I think the subtitle system is the old teletext system on sky whereas its a new system on freeview.. Might be wrong, but I think I remember reading that somewhere..


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Would be good if someone else chimes in with identical symptoms, seems like it's only just me at the moment. Can't find anything similar on Google either.
 
Do I have a faulty HDR-FOX T2, or is Freeview bad at handling subtitles? I'm an ex-Sky customer and never had issues like this.

Are you comparing like with like? Have you done a direct comparison of subtitles on freeview with the parallel definition broadcast on Sky? I.e. compared the same HD broadcast on both, or the same SD programmme on both.

The BBC One HD live and recorded Olympics were fine in the hours before the next day's Woman's football Great Britain v Cameroon match. As soon as the programmes focus switched to the recorded highlights of the match the subtitles degenerated and were worse than your example from the previous day's coverage. Additionally every now and again one would appear at the bottom of the screen instead of at the top.
Meanwhile on BCC One SD for the same broadcast the subtitles were allocated 2 lines and the only jumping was when the 2nd line moved up to the 1st line and were all at the top of the screen! Unlike BBC One HD for this same programme the subitlies on BBC One SD were readable.

The Olympics coverage was so vast that it s not really surprising that there were so many subtitle failures.
http://limpingchicken.com/2012/08/07/subtitle-fail-olympic-swimmers-surprising-childhood/
But like you I do wish that the jumping issue would totally disappear. The subtitles on the winter Olympics at the top of the screen continued to be OK on SD BBC TV (or rather ABC as the subtitles put it!).
I wonder if it is just an HD issue and whether or not it also depends on which subtitle company is providing the subtitles. The first ofcom report on the quality of TV subtitles provides analysis on the basis of channel rather than provider but does includes comments on live subtitling.
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2014/ofcom-publishes-first-results-on-quality-of-tv-subtitles/
 
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