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Answerman - How Do Blu-Ray Subtitles Work?

...is this a re-run of a previous Answerman? I could've sworn I read this before.

For Funimation/Sentai Filmworks, the subtitles work in Japanese Audio, but they don't work in English Audio. That's just lazy on their part for not including the subtitles in the English Audio.

This coming from deaf person.

Dark Absol wrote:

For Funimation/Sentai Filmworks, the subtitles work in Japanese Audio, but they don't work in English Audio. That's just lazy on their part for not including the subtitles in the English Audio. This coming from deaf person.

Eeh...that's probably a combination of a demand from the Japanese side (force subtitles under Japanese so to decrease the attractiveness of reverse importation) and the fact that the subtitles usually don't match the English dub. And putting the subtitles in is so much of a pain that I actually kind of understand why they don't put the effort in for a subtitle track people will just complain about. Because *someone* will put turn it on while watching the Japanese and not realize there's a second track there.

they should be using .ass subtitles.

it's rather hilarious unpaid fansubbers have been doing better work than professionals.

and they expect people to pay for this inferior work.

they should be using .ass subtitles.

it's rather hilarious unpaid fansubbers have been doing better work than professionals.

and they expect people to pay for this inferior work.

The main reason why has to do with the software. Fansubbers have developed their own software since the earliest days, and the current gold standard, Aegisub, is THE most powerful, flexible subtitling software that exists. Unfortunately it was developed in a bubble, completely oblivious to all of the standards and use cases in the professional world. There's no good way to import Aegisub scripts into any professional video program. None of its unique features, from text styling to animation effects, can be translated to any other format.
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This is not something that the rest of the world will "catch up to" someday. These features aren't in mainstream subtitling software because nobody outside of the anime world cares about these features. It's a total case of "Galapagos Syndrome" -- a little self-contained corner of the internet that matured completely cut off from the rest of the world, only to find out later that it took a completely different evolutionary path. Fansubs will always be able to do things the professionals can't. It's the nice part about not having to care if your viewers can play your video or not.