Subtitles on TV

Is it me or are the typists at Red Bee and the ITFC really, really bad?!

During last nights EastEnders the subtitle was supposed to read "Stacy" but read "Stella".

ITV's subtitles are awful at the moment. Apparently the church where Sarah and Jason got married was on "Ferry Road" when you could hear them say "Bury Road".

The live subtitles on BBC One and ITV1 are quite bad too. On ITV1's "National Television Awards" somebody said something about a symphony, but the subtitle read "Sinn Fein Fanny".

I used subtitles a lot - as I have hearing problems - but if you email ITFC or Red Bee about them they just don't reply.

I have the subtitles on at the moment on ITV Play's 'Make Your Play' and Hallowe'en has been subtitled as "Hell of Evensong" a couple of times already.

The subtitles on Channel 4 and Five aren't too bad. Not spotted many mistakes on them.

Also, on the subtitles for a participation game show do they continually tell you to dial in to answer a question? If you're deaf or hard of hearing, and ITV Play accept TypeTalk you'll be OK!

Final rant, tonights 'Coronation Street' was only subtitled from the start of part two, with the 'ITV Subtitles' caption appearing instead.

Yes, I work at ITV and could have a whinge about it there, but I want to know if you've seen any funny subtitles over the coming days and post them here. I can imagine BBC News 24, Sky News and ITV News have some classics!

Happy reading!

There was something on Points of View I think about subtitles recently which explained basically companies are now trialling a voice recognition system to create subtitles - but seemingly not bothering to check the outcome.

The subtitles issue was discussed here pretty recently and while subtitles on pre-recorded programmes are generally okay, occasionally there are some sloppy mistakes but this could be argued because of the amount of material that requires it. Basically, so much subtitling to get done in some form, not enough staff to proof-read it. ITV1 is claimed to have 87% of its transmission time in 2006 subtitled according to itvplc.com.

Live subtitling, on the other hand, is an entirely different kettle of fish. More mistakes will go through on live subtitling because its done on the fly using a system of effective short-hand and this often leads to some interesting subtitles that get broadcast, but the general gist is there. It has to be done this way, otherwise it would take too long to do and end up so far behind the broadcast they'd get overridden at the next commercial break.

Perhaps that's simply evidence that even the duty subtitlers can't be bothered to watch the show regularly!

Can you blame them?

You should complain to the broadcasters concerned rather than their suppliers

It seems to be a regular occurrance that subtitlers are often writing for programmes they otherwise wouldn't watch. The "Stella" instead of "Stacey" example is one I've seen many times before, in one case it was "Tammy" instead of "Tanya" because the subtitler clearly could not understand the characters' accents.

Why don't subtitlers work from broadcast scripts?

It might have been on here that I read this or it could have been another forum I go on. On ITV News with the voice recognision subtitles, the presenter said "Lets cross live to Nina Nannar" but the subtitles came up as "Lets cross live to [POLICE SIREN]"

I'm not aware of production houses issuing scripts to third parties. Besides, the written script may not be exactly what has been shot or edited to.

Transcription ensures (for the most part) that what is said in the programme, as well as significacnt sound fx, is what is typed on screen.

Errors aside, or course.

Coming this christmas to BBC Four!

possible - i remember there was a piece in ariel about the subtitles for midlands today during breakfast being typed by a stenographer at her home in scotland.

I remember that too, she subtitled News 24 in half hour sessions while sitting in a room overlooking the Forth

With news I think they do use scripts as these are entered into the news production system ENPS. This will contain all the presenters script and sometimes those for reports (when the hacks remember to type them in!).

If they have the script they then pace out the words at the right speed when the programme goes out. Anything else needs to be subtitled live

Any live elements such as interviews

AIUI some of the Red Bee subtitling is now done in Australia as Red Bee is owned by the owners of an Aussie subtitling operation.

Some of the mistakes - particularly the sound-a-likes are caused by stenographers who type phonetically and have their own bespoke phonetic->english dictionary.

Some live subtitling is now done by "ReSpeak" - where the subtitler repeats the dialogue into a voice recognition system tuned to their voice.

Recorded programmes can also be subtitled automatically if a script is available - as this allows the system to know who is talking (to get the colours right) and match the spoken word to the script accurately (as the speech recognition doesn't have to be accurate)