i personally hate burned in subs since they are a bit too small (and that they blend in sometimes with the background and some words can't be seen sometimes.

I cannot answer your question, but I just thought I'd share that I hate player generated subs with every ounce of my being. Burned in subs can be art ... player generated subs look like garbage nomatter how you slice it.

Just watched it and they are burned-in subs.

How can you tell which is which.

I would suppose you could tell by not actually being able to switch off burned in subbes with the subtitle button on your remote.

well if you turn subtitles "on" they should be player generated, but from the dvd I watched with subs "off" the japanese spoken words are burned in, not sure on what the effect is with subs on. I work at BB and rented a pre-street, but I had to return it so I can't tell you right off, i'll know tomorrow though when I buy it!

That's not entirely correct. For example, even though you set the subtitles to "off" on Once Upon A Time In Mexico, English subtitles still appear for the Spanish dialogue.

The easiest way to tell the difference between player generated and burned in subs is that the former always have a pixelated look to them whereas burned in subs are usually smooth (not always the case if done for "artistic" reasons").

Actually, the easiest way for me is just to fast forward through the scenes with subtitles. If they are there while you are FF, then they are burned in.

If the subs are on the actual film (since its widescreen) they areburned on, if they are on the black bar part then it is player generated. Also you can usually tell because the generated ones look blockier and are usually white.

what color are the subs in last samaurai?

mine are white

i guess since these are burned in, for people who speak other languages, their subs are player generated and inside the bar.

Why can't you use CC? It looks way better than sub IMO. Well, at least on my setup.

Two words: Annie Hall.

One more word: Amelie.

Both have player generated subs, and both have detracted from the film viewing experience.

I just picked this up and am relieved they are burned in...as I was driving home I was thinking "oh shit...i hope the subs aren't player generated"... nothing I hate more than terrible looking player generated subtitles.

MATT

Well, to break this down, any "American-made" or English movie is more or less, always going to have burned in subtitles for foreign languages, no?

Not necessarily. The Kill Bill DVD for example, doesn't have burned in subs.

In fact, on the contrary, more and more studios released the DVDs with player-generated subtitles for foreign languages. IIRC, only Warner Bros and Paramount consistently use burned-in subs. MGM is the "pioneer" studio to use player-generated subs (and information captions).

can someone do a screencapture of the subs?

oh and what joke in annie hall is ruined by the player generated subs. i mainly hate burned in subs because they are almost always too small and blend into the background. this is why i was glad that kill bill had player generated subs.

What if there are no black bars?

they are usually at the bottom of the screen.

If you have a progressive scan DVD player and a progressive display, the CC stream won't be passed.

This is totally weird. Most everyone here is supporting burned-in subtitles. While on The Last Samurai I can see it being fine, I've always been a fan of player generated subtitles, mainly because it doesn't mar the original film. I've been watching a lot of foreign films lately and have gotten used to the player generated subtitles.

The way the director intended the DVD to be (for foreign films) is obviously in it's native language without subtitles, so burning them into the image would ruin the original film. I guess this is why I prefer player generated subtitles over burned in ones.

However, that's not to say I don't think DVD players could be improved by adding an anti-alisasing feature for the subtitles.

There are those who would prefer burned-in subs for any foreign film, but I'm not one of them.

I can understand French enough to be able to watch a French film without the subtitles, so I appreciate being able to turn them off and just enjoy the movie.

Wouldn't you be annoyed if every film you bought had burned-in Swahili subtitles? Would that not distract from the film?

Be glad that most films have player-generated subs - that way you can change the language to whatever you'd like, or turn off the subs and just watch the film instead of reading it.

Subtitles are a necessary evil, but they are a distraction from the film, not part of the film itself (except in RARE cases like Annie Hall, where a scene makes use of subtitles for comic effect).

One thing I DO think should be burned-in, though, are title and location cards. They are part of the film. Translating the dialogue generally isn't.

See, you all seem to think that "The Last Samurai" is an English-language film with some spoken Japanese, where I see it more of a Japanese film with some English. It'd be nice to turn off the English subs in this fine Japanese film.

But alas.