Supposedly most Gen Z now use subtitles and I don’t blame them. With the way movie sound is mixed it’s really hard to hear the dialog. Not everyone has a Dolby-certified sound system in their living room.
Even with a basic surround system that has a separate center channel (and fiddling with the settings for 5.1, Atmos, stereo) we still often have to use subtitles. It’s major failure on the part of movie studio audio engineers.
Funny thing is, that it is only in the original language audio track, if you watch in German (what I not recommend, since I can’t stand the synchros) the speakers are way louder compared to the background noice/action scenes.
Luckily Plex has a feature to fix that on original language tracks as well and reduces loud sound automatically.
I’m Gen X and have been using subtitles ever since I had kids. My kids have only ever seen the TV with subtitles on. Just recently I noticed that they watch Youtube with subtitles on. So, not sure if it’s nature or nurture :)
Turning on the subtitles while children are watching television can double the chances of a child becoming good at reading†. It’s so brilliantly simple and can help children’s literacy so much that we want to shout it from the rooftops!
†Based on an academic study of 2,350 children, 34% became good readers with schooling alone. But when exposed to 30 minutes a week of subtitled film songs, that proportion more than doubled to 70%. There are lots of studies about the benefits of subtitles. This is just one! Check out our research page to find out more.
Subtitles: On
Supposedly most Gen Z now use subtitles and I don’t blame them. With the way movie sound is mixed it’s really hard to hear the dialog. Not everyone has a Dolby-certified sound system in their living room.
Even with a basic surround system that has a separate center channel (and fiddling with the settings for 5.1, Atmos, stereo) we still often have to use subtitles. It’s major failure on the part of movie studio audio engineers.
Funny thing is, that it is only in the original language audio track, if you watch in German (what I not recommend, since I can’t stand the synchros) the speakers are way louder compared to the background noice/action scenes.
Luckily Plex has a feature to fix that on original language tracks as well and reduces loud sound automatically.
Which I do not recommend.
I think you got what I wanted to say
I’m Gen X and have been using subtitles ever since I had kids. My kids have only ever seen the TV with subtitles on. Just recently I noticed that they watch Youtube with subtitles on. So, not sure if it’s nature or nurture :)
The nice thing about a dedicated center channel is you can focus your volume battles there for some movies.
The best are the Amazon originals with no 2.1 mix where the dialog is center channel only. My daughter loves cartoons with zero dialog.
https://turnonthesubtitles.org/
Wow, that’s amazing! Are schools adding 30 minutes of subtitled entertainment to their curriculum? If not, why the hell not?
I’m Dutch. I put subtitles on everything, even if the show is in my native language.
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