[dylanjha]

Even though I’m not deaf or hard of hearing, I find myself using captions more and more when I consume video content. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I saw something a while ago that tracked this as a broad trend. Today’s accessibility is tomorrow’s usability.

I also work on player stuff with OP and learned a lot in this process.

[veb]

As someone who IS deaf, but has a cochlear implant I have been telling companies for years that it's not only people like me who get use from it, it's people that can read English, but may find oral/listening harder. It allows them to reach a wider audience especially if they have the captions translated. The last couple of years I told people that a lot of phone users for example will be browsing their phone in public and if your video requires sound people will continue scrolling instead of taking the time to watch.

I did manage to get Air NZ to caption videos too, but not sure if they still do. Their marketing person changed years back and they didn't bother continuing with it (for a time anyway - with uBlock and such, I don't see any marketing from them anymore), even though the metrics that came back from the captioning experiment were incredible.

Then I got on an international flight and the safety video had captions for every language... except English. Ha.

If only a senior dev could get a job in which a11y is a priority. It is something I wish to specialise in more so.

I've found with NZ companies nobody seems to care (because there's bugger all legislation in NZ for this).

[KerrAvon]

You might consider applying to Apple. Accessibility is definitely a priority.

[globular-toast]

I can't stand captions being on. I tolerate them for foreign language stuff, obviously, but otherwise they really reduce me enjoyment of the material.

The funny thing is I'm someone who finds it difficult to hear people in noisy environments. But I never seem to have a problem with films or TV. Even films that many people seem to have trouble with, like Tenet.

My girlfriend always wants them on, though. I don't get it. But I have at least a couple of theories about why this is.

Firstly, she's a way faster reader than me. She reads easily twice as fast as me. But reading always takes priority in my brain. I can't not read a caption if it's on screen and that increased mental burden reduces my enjoyment.

Secondly, we watch things in different ways. When I watch something, it has 100% of my attention. Anything else is background noise, which I don't like. I'm much more selective about what I watch for that reason, as it's a bigger commitment. That means my listening circuits are fully engaged, but also I'm fully immersed in the film which means I benefit from additional context which is super important for listening.

[Beltalowda]

Related story: "Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on? " – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32879737

[tristor]

I remember that story. I’m definitely in that group although older. For reasons I don’t fully understand there is no meaningful difference for me in watching foreign media or media in my native English, and in both cases I require captions to understand dialogue. I am not hard of hearing in any way and don’t have problems in conversation, but I just can’t understand what anyone is saying on movies and TV. I rely nearly entirely on captions.

[Semaphor]

Do you have issues understanding people in noisy (a lot of background noise, not necessarily loud) environments (e.g. at private parties where there are other groups talking in the same room)? I have this issue (apparently dubbed "hearing in noise"), and it gets triggered by dialogue in TV shows as well.

[teddyh]

> Today’s accessibility is tomorrow’s usability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_cut_effect

[dylanjha]

Wow that’s exactly it. I didn’t know there was a term for this. Thanks for sharing!

[RheingoldRiver]

I recently watched Rings of Power, and I found the dialogue nearly impossible to understand without subtitles - everyone was so quiet all the time, almost whispering to each other, and almost never speaking towards the camera, so I wasn't getting the aid of seeing the sounds they were making either. The Numenoreans were ok usually but no one else was intelligible without subtitles. It happens in movies a lot too, mixing is often done to prioritize effects & music, rather than people actually understanding wtf anyone is saying.

All this to say, I turned on subtitles within one episode and it made for a much better viewing experience. Once I was able to read along I had no issue at all understanding the words too, but without the cue it was impossible.

[Double_a_92]

This effect is especially bad for originally English series and movies. I understand English pretty well, but it's incredibly difficult for me to watch movies on a TV. Either I have to wear headphones, or set the TV volume uncomfortably loud.

[ridgered4]

I find the audio mix on a lot of movies is such that turning it up makes almost no difference. It barely improved the dialog loudness, just increases the obnoxiously loud music and sound effects.

Older media seems to have a more even mix. It is probably a 5.1 through my stereo speakers thing but I'm not sure how to fix it or if even can be fixed.

[CodeArtisan]

Japaneses put captions on everything due to the large amount of homophones in the Japanese speaking language; Words sound the same but are written with different kanji, having the text form avoid confusion.

[jrochkind1]

Wait, then how do they handle... talking? It seems hard to believe that the spoken language is generally confusing without captions...

[Cyberdog]

They handle it just fine, of course. I disagree with the statement that Japanese has a relatively high incidence of homophones. It is true that Japanese TV shows, particularly variety shoes and lighter fare like that, have a lot of on-screen captions and I don’t know the reason for that, but I doubt it’s homophones, and at any rates more “serious” shows like dramas as well as all movies are caption-free (but will likely have a subtle track you can enable).

[ThinkingGuy]

I lived in Japan in the 90s and watched a LOT of TV there. From my experience most subtitling on TV fell into 2 categories:

On anime and children's shows, the theme songs were frequently subtitled. I assumed this was so viewers could appreciate the lyrics

Comedy, skit and variety shows, where the dialog and commentary is mostly banter amongst a cast of "wacky" hosts. Here, subtitles (almost always in a garish, colorful font) served to punctuate jokes or funny lines, in the same way that a laugh track on an American sitcom is used to let the audience know when to laugh (even though the Japanese shows usually had a laughing studio audience as well).

Some shows did (do?) go overboard with the "comedic" subtitles, to a point where they were subtitling almost every other line a host said.

[vharuck]

Going by my poor Japanese listening skills and some interviews from documentaries I've seen, Japanese speakers mostly stick to common words and idioms in conversations. They also "over-explain" by repeating, rephrasing, or even reacting to their own points.

So, it's just like conversations in any language: basic, rambling, and emotive.

[fomine3]

Talk on documentary is tend to be like that. It's not general.

[eclipticplane]

If I'm watching something I want to retain, I intentionally reduce the volume and turn on closed captioning.

I do wish closed captioning worked better with speed controls, though.

[knaik94]

What do you mean by working better with speed controls? The playback speed multiplier affects both the video and captions for me on Youtube. I like opening up the "transcript" too from the hamburger menu on YT.

For local playback of media files, I use daum kakao Potplayer, I have never come across something more power user friendly. MPV is weaker in a lot of areas, in my opinion. Potplayer interfaces with everything I'd want including vaporsynth and madvr and it has options for subtitle resync based on a multiplier and also converting based on framerate 60 -> 30. There is even an option for live subtitle translations. I personally like using it with smooth video project, but I understand it's not everyone's taste.

[fingerlocks]

I enabled captions to watch the AppleTV series Slow Horses. I’m a native English speaker without hearing problems, but something about the slurred fast dialog and oddball slang made it hard to follow.

I really enjoyed having the captions for so many other reasons that I never turned them off. It’s great for multi-tasking and avoiding interruptions from environmental sounds like barking dogs, loud annoying children, phone calls, et cetera.

[yakubin]

I think the trend comes from services, like YouTube, enabling captions by default. I almost always disable them, because they’re distracting. However, sometimes I can’t be bothered. I suspect many people can’t be bothered even more often.

I enable captions sometimes for single words, which I failed to hear right, although usually in those instances captions show something completely nonsensical.