Subtitles: Yellow vs White?

[MichaelB]

Why are no DVD companies using the advantages of the format and put two types of subtitles on their releases? Why not include white AND yellow subtitles (and green ones, just for good measure)?
I also think it would be neat to choose between two different font sizes (a bigger one for smaller screens and vice versa).

If I remember rightly, Mondo Vision does just that (i.e. offers a choice of colour and size) on its Andrzej Żuławski releases.

[Mathew2468]

And I always use the yellow ones because I'm deranged.

[swo17]

For the record, when I said that multiple color options were silly, I just meant that if the subs were always offered in white with black borders, no one would ever think to ask for another option. Am I wrong?

[zedz]

That's my reasoning too. If the subs are legible, discreet and not coloured, is anybody going to be writing angry "WHERE ARE MY PURPLE SUBS THAT FILL THE BOTTOM TWO THIRDS OF THE SCREEN!!!" letters to the label?

[Gregory]

I want all my subtitles to be in "papyrus" type, Avatar-style, and everyone's preferences are equally valid, so there you have it. Include it as an option.

[Michael Kerpan]

The old New Yorker video of Ozu's Equinox Flower not only had ugly color balance overall, but also huge yellow subtitles (in a very blocky unattractive font). Put me off the film until I finally saw the (unsubbed) Shochiku DVD. ;-}

[knives]

For the record, when I said that multiple color options were silly, I just meant that if the subs were always offered in white with black borders, no one would ever think to ask for another option. Am I wrong?

Yes, my sister on those Animeigo discs chooses the colour options because it makes it easier for her to tell who is talking.

[zedz]

The big question is: does she write angry letters to all the other DVD labels who don't do the colour-coded-for-individual-speakers subs?

(If the answer is yes, I'm very, very sorry for bringing this up.)

[knives]

No, she lives with it when other DVDs aren't as accommodating.

[MichaelB]

The only time I've ever been minded to complain to a label about their subtitles was in connection with Facets' eastern European releases.

And in their case, being yellow was a very minor crime compared with everything else - out-of-sync subtitles are a far worse crime, especially if they're non-removable!

[colinr0380]

I also think it would be neat to choose between two different font sizes (a bigger one for smaller screens and vice versa).

I have quite a few Artsmagic DVD releases (both US and UK discs) which also did the same thing of having two subtitle tracks with one set of fonts a little larger than the other. It had never really occurred to me until this point that it might be something to do with letting the viewer choose a size based on different sized screens, but it seems so obvious to me now!

[MichaelB]

Amusingly enough, this letter has just appeared in the new Sight & Sound:

My wife and I are keen cinemagoers and we visit our local art cinema - the Cornerhouse in Manchester - practically every week. Last week we saw Gangs of Wasseypur. Unfortunately, the subtitles for some parts of the film were unreadable, i.e. white on white, which of course spoiled the film for us. Earlier in the week I saw the film No and the subtitles were in yellow, and they were easy to read. Is it possible to ask that films be subtitled in either yellow or a strip of black along the base of the print - where of course the subtitles would be in white?

Kenneth Gold, Bury, Lancashire

[Michael Kerpan]

As ugly as yellow subs may be, there is nothing I hate worse than white subs on a white (or even mostly white) background.

[MichaelB]

As ugly as yellow subs may be, there is nothing I hate worse than white subs on a white (or even mostly white) background.

The climactic scene of Satyajit Ray's The Adversary, involving four men in white shirts arguing with each other, is largely incomprehensible in Mr Bongo's edition, which was clearly sourced from a print with burned-in subs. I'd have much preferred yellow subs to that, or indeed anything readable.

[knives]

Fortunately it seems Criterion is wiping that clean.

[JonasEB]

As ugly as yellow subs may be, there is nothing I hate worse than white subs on a white (or even mostly white) background.

I had to ditch watching Rivette's L'Amour Fou 1 hour in due to this. It's unwatchable. Really need a good release of this one.

I don't mind yellow subtitles myself...at least in most cases (and only for color films.) The yellow subtitles used by Sony are certainly ugly. The yellow subtitles used for Disney's Studio Ghibli DVDs look fine.

[matrixschmatrix]

Better let Francis Ford Coppola and James Cameron know yellow subtitles are wrong.

I just saw The Godfather at the Cinemark classic movies thing tonight, and they actually had white subtitles for the Italian conversations- which is something I hadn't seen before.

[didi-5]

Not an international DVD, but the subtitling on All I Desire (a b/w film) in the Directed by Douglas Sirk set is PINK! Horrible.

[zedz]

It's a 'women's picture,' what do you expect?

[manicsounds]

Stuck To Your Pillow DVD review, with black subtitles

[mvp]

I've read the entire thread and people are adamant about white subtitles. It seems that almost no one actually prefere yellow subtitles. Some might think they are fine, but no one expressed they prefer yellow. And I do think there is value in using a bright and non white color. I was born in a country that does not speak English, so we were used to have subtitles in every film, tv shows... everything. Every movie from the US had to be subtitled, so there was a lot of reading to do. Today, if I want the movie in English without subtitles, I can just remove them, but I had to learn English before being able to do it. And it took me a long time to learn. In the meantime, yellow was just easier to read. And it is still is. Even with thin borders, white can blend with the background and become very hard to read sometimes. Although people commented here that yellow pops out and it is distracting, I don't see the point of the argument. You are going to look at every line to read the subtitles anyway. How can something that you have to look at be considered distracting? The best subtitles are the ones that last just the amount of time needed for you to read it on screen. And the easier it is to read, the better. Subtitles are not part of the experience, it is a tool to aid comprehension. Unless the producers want to include a foreign language with subtitles, they usually don't film with subtitles in mind. White and yellow will both be distracting. But since they are necessary, I vote for the most readable.

Today, with streaming and all that, the standard is white, but whenever possible I change the settings to yellow.

[Sternhalma Weinstein]