Lazy-ass streaming services and non-English language movies

[Scam]

I’ve had this a few times now and it absolutely does my nut.

I have been waiting for Anatomy of a Fall to appear somewhere as I missed it at the cinema. It turned up on Amazon Prime. Great I thought, that’s tonight’s film sorted.

20mins later and we’ve had to give up on it, because they only have English closed captioned subtitles which means you get all the *heavy breathing* and *man plays piano* etc. Ridiculously distracting, and not correct at all for an English “version” presentation. Plus you get everything subtitled - which includes people speaking in English!

I’ve tried all my AppleTV settings, checked the Prime Video settings. Nothing works. It’s that or nothing.

What the heck are they playing at? This movie won the Palm D’Or - it would have had all of the appropriate language/subtitle versions created for the cinema. Why aren’t Amazon providing them?

 

[Amidar]

My pet hate, closed caption subtitles Netflix did the same with La Revolution it took months before it got regular subtitles. I always like to watch non English speaking tv series or movies in there native language with English subtitles.

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[Scam]

My pet hate, closed caption subtitles Netflix did the same with La Revolution it took months before it got regular subtitles. I always like to watch non English speaking tv series or movies in there native language with English subtitles.

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Yeah Netflix did it with a movie called Monos as well. Another award winner.

Amazon actually replied to my complaint saying basically it’s all that was provided. Absolute nonsense. There’s no way the content owners would want this on a UK streaming service like this. No way.

I'd like to inform, subtitle availability depends on the content owners. They only have the right to decide the type of subtitle for their contents.

Hence we don't have option to change it from our end. Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by this situation.

Thank for letting us know you are interested in regular English language subtitles, without the Audio Described parts.

I've forwarded your message to our Prime Video business team and internal team (who has direct contact with the content owners) for review so that each suggestion will be read and taken into consideration.

Our prime video team is actively engaged with the studios to add Subtitles to as many titles as possible and are expanding our catalogue of videos that support Subtitles every month.

 

[throwaway4372]

I want a filter so only movies in english show up. Don't need to see stuff I can't understand.

 

[Hotwired]

Yeah Netflix did it with a movie called Monos as well. Another award winner.

Amazon actually replied to my complaint saying basically it’s all that was provided. Absolute nonsense. There’s no way the content owners would want this on a UK streaming service like this. No way.

Are you suggesting Amazon watched that film and made their own subtitles. Bundling what they were given and chucking it out the door sounds entirely plausible. Why are the content owners immune from suspicion.

 

[Freakbro]

Sounds like Amazon saved you a couple of hours of your life you wouldn't get back

Seriously though, I agree this is extremely annoying

 

[Werewolf]

Yeah Netflix did it with a movie called Monos as well. Another award winner.

Amazon actually replied to my complaint saying basically it’s all that was provided. Absolute nonsense. There’s no way the content owners would want this on a UK streaming service like this. No way.

I think you might be surprised.

IIRC the people that showed it at the cinema and the people that licenced the streaming rights may be two separate companies and not all the "localisation" materials make it back to the company who owns the primary rights or makes it back to the local licensee.
It's unusual these days but from what I've read it does happen either due to the contracts not requiring it, or simply because different people are dealing with different aspects and that makes the loss or misfiling of a "secondary asset" such as a specific subtitle steam more likely. I have heard of it happening in the past, and sometimes contacting the company that actually licenced the material the streaming service can make a difference as they can push an updated asset pack through.

It's also possible that Amazon have been given the subtitle track as arranged for Home Video viewing, and the distributors haven't wanted to pay for the BBFC to pass the non CC subtitle tracks (IIRC the BBFC will do a hard of hearing subtitle track inclusive with the primary language track, but any other subtitle tracks cost extra*), this is/was a fairly common issue for some older slightly more niche DVD releases.
I think a lot of Netflix subs are CC's rather than "original language" or even if the spoken language is English they'll be "HOH CC", I've also seen things where there was meant to be captions for secondary languages (when English is the primary) and it's not been activated unless you've got the full English subs on (so not automatically displaying them if the HOH/CC subs are off).

Basically there are cases when it happens, either due to someone cost saving or a mistake in the materials and it's unlikely that anyone at Amazon who is customer facing will have any access to the details.

*You also have to potentially retime any/all subtitle tracks that aren't "burned in" for home viewing if they were timed for the cinema, not necessarily a major issue these days but it still requires not just something like running a programme to adjust from 24fps tp 25 or 29.98, but needing to have at couple of QC passes with the new timings in case of "drift" or any minor changes in the run time (IE any additional front loaded credits)

 

[Uther]

Learn French, simple no?

 

[hudson86]

Its very common across all the streaming services, I find Netflix and Disney are the worst. Very often they dont include forced subs for the non english bits and you have to watch the whole thing with subs with cc or pee about rewinding and turning subs on and off

Drives me nuts. I end up have to download from cough cough elsewhere and get subs from open subtitles for something im paying for.

 

[arknor]

Drives me nuts. I end up have to download from cough cough elsewhere and get subs from open subtitles for something im paying for.

if you use vlc it has its own subs search and 1 click add to video built in.

click View > Vlsub

it can search by the video hash or the title

 

[Scam]

Are you suggesting Amazon watched that film and made their own subtitles. Bundling what they were given and chucking it out the door sounds entirely plausible. Why are the content owners immune from suspicion.

I wasn't suggesting they made their own subs.

I think you might be surprised. (snip)

To both, but at the end of the day presumably Amazon bought the rights to the film in the UK. The version they should rightfully receive should be the one suitable for a UK (English speaking audience). That means non HOH, regular English subs burned in for any non-English dialogue. This should be bread and butter, and I don't understand how or why both sides involved would think anything other than that is acceptable for a UK audience. As it is, I'd say 80% of people going to watch the movie in the UK will turn it off. It doesn't make sense.

 

[Scam]

So, can anyone do a test for me? I just thought I'd try watching a bit of it in the web browser and it defaulted to subtitles = OFF which doesn't show the HOH/AD nonsense, only speech that is non-English. In other words, what you want.

Can anyone confirm?

Something might be going on with my AppleTV settings... I'm thoroughly confused. Turning subtitles to OFF on the AppleTV (in Prime Video) just meant you got nothing when they're speaking French. I have all AppleTV language settings set to English etc.

 

[Shamikebab]

Its very common across all the streaming services, I find Netflix and Disney are the worst. Very often they dont include forced subs for the non english bits and you have to watch the whole thing with subs with cc or pee about rewinding and turning subs on and off

Drives me nuts. I end up have to download from cough cough elsewhere and get subs from open subtitles for something im paying for.

Yep had this with Johnny English on Netflix last night for the Russian parts. Think it was the same with Four Lions too. Prettyy annoying.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Amazon don't give a **** what version they put out unless it is their own content so they won't bother sourcing all the subs. Unlike Apple and Netflix who will actively push back to the content owners, Apple won't even let something go live until everything is there.

 

[Housey]

Learn French, simple no?

weeee

 

[Scam]

Amazon don't give a **** what version they put out unless it is their own content so they won't bother sourcing all the subs. Unlike Apple and Netflix who will actively push back to the content owners, Apple won't even let something go live until everything is there.

But surely it’s not even a conversation? Like, here we pay you for the UK rights. Ok here’s the UK version with subtitles for non-English sections. Done. It’s like they’re actively giving them the wrong version?

But anyway can anyone try playing this film on Prime on the web and maybe AppleTV too? I need to figure out what’s going on!

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

But surely it’s not even a conversation? Like, here we pay you for the UK rights. Ok here’s the UK version with subtitles for non-English sections. Done. It’s like they’re actively giving them the wrong version?

But anyway can anyone try playing this film on Prime on the web and maybe AppleTV too? I need to figure out what’s going on!

Just checked, it has forced narratives on the web, so there are only subs when people speak French.

Normally you wouldn't turn these on and they won't be advertised, they are tied to the audio language so should just appear.

 

[Kenai]

But anyway can anyone try playing this film on Prime on the web and maybe AppleTV too? I need to figure out what’s going on!

I don't have AppleTV to try but on the Web player and LG TV app, setting Subtitles to 'off', shows subtitles for foreign language only.