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Comment by CodeMage | Hacker News Reader

> as a plain MP4/MKV/AVI file in the language you want (not necessarily the official language of your region)

Not to mention being able to download subtitles in almost any language there is and then play the movie with those subtitles.

That's one of those things that drive me crazy about Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and such: there's a ton of movies I can't watch with my wife because her English isn't good enough yet.

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> That's one of those things that drive me crazy about Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and such: there's a ton of movies I can't watch with my wife because her English isn't good enough yet.

I will tell you something more crazy about Amazon Prime. You will have an English movie available in the German catalogue but only in German (dubbed). You won't get the English version. I'd like to meet the geniuses who came up with these ideas.

You know what is more crazy. Having most of the movies in the movie theaters dubbed to the local language. I for the love of god can`t understand why people prefer to watch those lame versions and not with the original actor audio/voice. Especially when some guy is doing voice overs for several actors. It hurts my brain so badly I can`t watch it.

The Germans and French prefer dubbing, you won’t see it in the northern (Netherlands+Scandinavian) countries. In Switzerland, you have to look for version originale playings (at least in the French part).

In some countries (e.g. Poland) the theaters have two shows, one with voice-over usually afternoons - for the kids, and subtitles later/nights, for grown-ups that most likely have an adequate knowledge of the foreign language.

The German dubs are usually quite good (some are so good that it is really difficult to notice that it's dubbed), because the majority of the audience demands it. Having the same voice actor for multiple characters would be unusual (at best), and often the same actor is voiced by the same voice actor across movies, though sometimes it changes.

Spain also dubs almost everything. At least, they are quite good at it

Because many people don't want to read subtitles because it breaks their immersion or is distracting?

Because they are mostly 'lame' to you because you know the source language and not to someone who only knows the destination language?

Because voice artists often have better voices than the original actors?

I can understand you personally not liking dubs, but I don't see how it's difficult to see the point of those who do.

There are subtitles for that. When I watch movies from countries that speak languages I can`t understand I always watch undubbed with subtitles. Would you listen to dubbed favorite band or great vocals like Adele? I hope not.

I literally enumerated reasons why subtitles would lead to a suboptimal experience for people. You just ignored them and re-asserted your personal opinion.

Well of course it is a preference. I said that I just can`t understand that other preference. Because for me, dubbing breaks immersion so much more that it makes the movie unwatchable.

I agree with everything you stated, when dubs are good it vastly helps with the experience and I remember movies better if they have dubs. That being said though when movies are dubbed badly it seriously detracts from my experience and I used to switch subs if it is early in the movie and they sucked. I eventually gave up of this practice and just watched with subs because there where so many bad dubs.

two words: dubbed porn. Its a thing in Germany :o

> You won't get the English version.

Meanwhile the DVD/Bluray version usually has at least English and German voice tracks and subtitles, but usually French and some other versions as well.

So, interesting workaround for Netflix: If the language of your account is set to something other than English, it unlocks subtitles and dubs for that language that you wouldn't normally have access to.

My wife and kids have their Netflix UI set to Japanese, which allows them to access Japanese language and subtitles for movies that support it, even though they're not available on my English-language Netflix.

I checked it right now: no support for my native language at Netflix. Netflix is not interested in me, so I will continue to support pirates, which will translate Netflix shows into my language.

> If the language of your account is set to something other than English, it unlocks subtitles and dubs for that language that you wouldn't normally have access to.

Thank you for the hint, but don't you think this is a way ridiculous? Why can't people that prefer English UI (e.g. I do, although it's neither my native language nor the official language of the country I've moved to, I am fluent in all the three but am interested in content in other languages too and I always strongly prefer all the apps UIs to be in English) access content in other languages?

If you bear watching Netflix on the browser (for example Chrome and Firefox are restricted to 720p), you have the option to provide a subtitle file, but you are required to jump through another hoop as it needs to be in the DFXP format, not considering that you have to find one with the correct timing cause you don't have a way to delay/accel them in the interface.

There's a webpage that can convert SRT to DFXP and you can download the subtitles if someone has done the conversion be fore, but you are totally right, Netflix subtitles experience are subpar.

Their subtitle font CSS is pretty poor too. I have custom CSS injected to watch anything with subtitles because their default subtitle CSS gives a choice of a large box that blocks the content or provides no outlines around the text.

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