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Comment by cormacrelf | Hacker News Reader

It would be cool (but super niche) to have a "wait, what was that" button in Netflix. Skip back 10s, enable subs. Would be great when you're trying not to use the subtitles, but sometimes get a bit outpaced.

Edit: maybe not so niche! Someone build a WebExtension!

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You used to be able to pause Netflix, switch the subtitles (or turn them on), and it would update the subtitle language for the current frame.

Was nice when you couldn't understand the subtitle (slang that Google Translate doesn't know, for example). You'd switch to English for a second, go "aha", switch back, and resume video.

1-2 years ago Netflix introduced a regression where that feature doesn't work anymore. Now you have to go back and re-trigger the subtitles for the current frame for them to appear.

Sucks for language learners.

Same thing on Youtube.

That works with Siri on Apple TV. Say "what did he say", and it'll jump back a bit and temporarily engage subtitles.

This is super awesome but also super frustrating. I never knew this. So makes me wonder how many other cool ‘hidden’ features like this exist.

I think this is a big issue with voice-controlled UIs generally. People will certainly not try to say anything that comes to mind because they know the "assistant" is a machine with limited understanding of the world. But how do you allow them to discover what's possible, then? (I've never used one of these, so I don't know how this is being done today, if at all.)

How did you discover this?

It was in the presentation when Apple TV was announced: https://youtu.be/0qwALOOvUik?t=3731

Can one also ask "what can I say?" to find out what's available for Siri on tvOS, as on macOS, iOS, and watchOS?

I'd check if I wasn't 300 miles from my Apple TV :( I'm like 80% sure that this is the case, though–but it's possible that this specific feature isn't mentioned.

does it understand other genders or non gendered pronouns like "what did they say?" or maybe something more generic like "what was that?"

I just always have subs on. There are shows which are downright unwatchable without subs (e.g. True Detective). I'm not a native speaker, but I'm fluent.

Subs also add a lot of the plot sometimes. Certain quiet sounds you wouldn't otherwise hear are mentioned in the subs that can set a scene, foreshadow, or explain motives.

Yes, I can't stand it if I didn't catch a crucial key phrase that may be relevant to the story later on.

If I could, I would have the entire script as well, like Script to Screen does: https://www.facebook.com/pg/scripttoscreen.film/videos

So, are those sounds really that quiet? I noticed this before, that sometimes subtitles mention a sound I haven't heard, but I always assumed it's due to my slightly impaired hearing. I wonder if this happens to people with good hearing as well.

Never came across this myself and have above average hearing...

One explanation might be if you're watching a 5.1 surround sound movie and playing it through your monitor's built-in speakers which can't handle the extra channels.

I always run subtitles too.

I work they use fewer words....it's unfortunate when it spoils a delivery several seconds before it happens.

Try Peaky Blinders without subs. In most shows I can get like 90% of what they're saying, in PB I can get like 5.

I ripped the bandaid off at an early age, actively trying to avoid subtitles. At some point it just becomes distracting where you're looking at them when you wouldn't need to.

The way I sometimes do it is by opening a transcript (springfieldspringfield.co.uk is a good website for those) in another tab. When I don't get something, I switch tabs and I search (via ctrl+f) for the last thing I've understood. This process is intentionally cumbersome to discourage me from doing that very often.

It does detract you from the scenes a bit though, so I prefer to keep them off if I can

Yeah, I often read the subtitles before the words are spoken, which sometimes ruins the surprise when they say it.

Subs kill any comedic timing for me. Something about reading the punchline when the joke is still being setup is a bit jarring.

I base my decision on a genre I'm watching.

If it's a comedy, there's not going to be any sort of quiet sounds, so I keep the subs off. If it's an action that usually has gunshots way louder than dialogue, I'm going to adjust the volume to those gunshots and turn the subs on.

I'd love this. I think it's an overlooked use case but a common one. Happens to me all the time.

The closed captioning settings on a Roku player hint at something like that, but I'm not sure I've actually seen it work. Instead of just off and on, they have 4 settings: Off, On always, On replay, and On mute. (More details: https://support.roku.com/article/208756848-how-to-enable-clo...)

Another possible variation on this would be to just let you scroll back through subtitles without stopping the video. It would be nice to continue without breaking the flow, but maybe it would be confusing or weird for them to be out of sync.

This does, indeed, work on Roku. My MIL's Roku TV doesn't support it, but our Roku Premiere+ does. It's one of my favorite features.

There is already this

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/language-learning-...

One of the best features of PotPlayer [0] (available only on Windows, sadly) is that it supports jumping to previous/next subtitle points. Combined with its auto subtitle search feature, it's extremely useful for a nonnative speaker like me to jump back and read an unintelligible section of a movie, or skip a boring section by watching only the parts with dialogue. I wish there were a similar alternative for Linux. The best media player I've found is VLC, which is a joke compared to PotPlayer in terms of customizability and UX.

[0]: https://daumpotplayer.com/

Mpv [0] has this as well (plus many more possibilities (including scripting/plugins)).

[0]: https://mpv.io/manual/master/

Took me a while to find the lines, so here's the magic:

     # ~/.config/mpv/input.conf (lines 20-22)
     LEFT sub_seek -1
     RIGHT sub_seek 1

Thanks! This is something I've wanted before.

Edit: sub_step is also great to adjust subtitle delay instead.

I love PotPlayer. Pausing playback on minimize and auto playing URLs, Youtube included, after pressing ctrl+v in the main window is well beyond amazing.

PotPlayer actually has a feature that allows you to click on a word in subtitles and open it in a search engine within your browser.

Wow, that‘s a really nice idea! I‘ve never thought of it this way but now I understand it happens to me quite often actually!

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/what-did-you-say/n...

Will have it done by end of week :)

I had those moments while watching “Snatch” as non-native speaker :)

I do this all the time manually, that'd be a great feature.

I would use this all the time.

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