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Comment by 99052882514569 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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