I first heard about close captioning when I was living in Canada back in the early 90s since practically every station had it. Close captioning was created for the deaf community or hard of hearing individuals to help them understand what’s going on on TV. It’s a button on the remote you press to turn on and off and when on you can see subtitles on the screen along with sound descriptions. Turns out the system isn’t used here and so someone just started a campaign to try and push OSN to implement it. This is their aim taken from their Facebook page:
To urge OSN (Orbit Showtime Network) in speeding up the process of incorporating English subtitles in all OSN channels (whether the broadcasts are in English or Arabic) so that everyone – deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people – can have a better experience.
I’m surprised OSN don’t already have close captioning since they’re on the cutting edge of technology so I hope they listen and implement it soon. To support this campaign and for information on how you can help check out their Facebook page [Here]
On a side note they have a pretty cool campaign page with pre-written emails you can send with a click of a button and lots of information among other things. All campaign pages should be like this.
9 replies on “Captioning OSN – Let’s Have English Subtitles”
How about NO subtitles, they let us choose English or Arabic or No subtitles. When ORBIT first opened services in the Gulf there were no subtitles, then they forced us to have arabic subtitles which I find annoying.
close captioning allows you to turn on and off the subtitles, they aren’t embedded onto the image they’re on a separate layer.
I’m sorry but there are several shows that have Arabic subtitles that cannot be turned off, and it’s annoying not because it’s Arabic but because they usually put them in the middle of the screen at least two lines high which can get in the way of the program.
You can turn off subtitles on the HD channels, just press that little subtitle button and change the Arab subs to off. You can change the language track sometimes too.
I agree with Mark and “aaa”. Like they said, you can disable the Subtitles on the HD channels or enable the Arabic subtitles or English subtitles (this is the option we are trying to push for in our campaign).
Sometime back, I contacted OSN customer service requesting to have English subtitles for the OSN channels for hearing impaired users such as myself. Their reply was as follows (edited):
“You will be glad to know that OSN set-top-boxes (STB’s) do carry the feature of ‘disabling’ subtitles both at a channel level (and) as a user preference setting that applies across channels.”
As you can see, OSN said that the subtitling feature can be disabled with the click of a button. Obviously, for me, I want English subtitles feature enabled when the time comes and probably for other viewers, both English and Arabic subtitles can be disabled.
Most viewers have the choices… and good ones to make, which I at the moment, do not have – frustratingly enough.
The tech is actually already there, they have the option to change subtitle languages on the HD channels. Usually I use this to turn Arabic subs off 😛 But yeah some movies have English subtitle support, they could easily add it to other stuff.
It’s sad that not a single country supports closed captioning in the Middle East. I’ve lived in the US & enjoyed having CC.
Hence the reason why I turn to torrents and leech those millions of dollars of productions just so I can watch my movies/TV shows with captions.
As for the Arabic subtitling here, most of the translations are wrong. So I simply gave up on TV. Only time I switch on my TV is when I want to play on the Xbox.
How about we petition OSN to air this weekend’s UFC on Fox: Cain Velasquez vs Junior Dos Santos. I can’t believe Flash Entertainment owns 10% of the UFC yet we can’t see this shit that’s going to air live and for free in 12 different countries. Mark if you have any clue how I can get this on TV let me know plz thanks.
I just want to point out here why having English subtitles is important:
One: Accessibility will allow subscribers to enjoy the HD and standard experience much more, especially with English subtitles. English subtitles will help those who are learning English as a second language, those who want to improve their literacy skills and will help school children in learning how to read.
Two: By providing English subtitles, increased accessibility will increase OSN’s viewership and market share. And this is exactly what Sky Cinema is doing. It is an Italian set of 10 movie channels owned by Sky Italia through which you can watch the movies with English subtitles (and the audio language can be change to English). For those who have owned an HD DREAMBOX – which is a cable box or similar, you would certainly have these options.
Three: English subtitles will allow the hearing impaired (those with mild to complete hearing loss) to enjoy the same basic rights in using OSN channels on an equal basis with everyone else. Sadly, the hearing impaired in GCC countries currently – irrespective of their language – do not have equal access to any of the TV broadcasts such as news, TV shows, and movies, where English subtitles are currently not available. Unfortunately, there are no official figures of how many hearing impaired we have here in this region, but the general global figure is that for every 7 hearing persons there is 1 hearing impaired (this figured is agreed upon in the USA and UK). Basically, those who are hearing impaired are entitled to have the same access a hearing person would receive. English subtitle is also useful for hearing people. Some TV channels have background music or sound effects which drown the dialogue – but viewers could get the dialogue through English subtitles. Not everyone who appears on TV has good speech or language skills and English subtitles would be helpful here.