• subtitle positioning

    From J. P. Gilliver@G6JPG@255soft.uk to uk.tech.broadcast on Sat Jan 3 13:13:04 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

    Last night (or small hours of this morning) I saw something - not very
    good, think it might have been NCIS Hawaii - that used a very effective subtitling trick:
    Instead of the usual different colours for different people speaking, it
    just moved them around, to track the person speaking: if the person
    speaking was on the left, middle, or right of the screen, the subtitles
    just appeared left, middle, or right. I don't mean the subtitles moved,
    they just sort of centred on the person speaking.
    Granted, this required two (short) lines rather more often than the norm.With widescreen now being pretty universal, I think this could be used
    more: I found it very effective, and it didn't require me to remember
    who was what colour.
    (Since I'm using this subject heading anyway, I'll repeat my assertion
    that - for news programming and similar - the _default_ position for
    subtitles should nowadays be top of screen, not bottom as it started 40+
    years ago. Screen layout/design, especially for news, has changed a
    _lot_ since then. They _do_ put them at the top for headlines and
    weather, so it _can_ be done; I think it should be the _default_.)
    --
    J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
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