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Anonymous User
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Subtitles/closed captions not working properly

The subtitles on NowTV have never been great, but after a recent update of the NowTV Player they're absolutely awful.

 

They'll show a single line of speech frozen on the screen for 5 minutes, before showing another single line and cutting out again. Obviously this is just as useless as no subtitles at all - and from a quick scan of the forums I'm not the only person experiencing issues with rubbish captioning.

 

If NowTV is actively trying to drive away its deaf and hard of hearing customers, it's going the right way about it.

91 REPLIES 91
Anonymous User
Not applicable

I’ve always wondered why subtitles suddenly stop appearing for no reason.  There’s no reason to it. It’s highly frustrating.  What makes me angry is that now tv must know it’s a problem but they refuse to do anything about it. But hey ho they keep taking our money every month 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Same problem. It’s May now and I find it so odd that NOW TV has fixed it.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Same here. Been experiencing this issue for many months now on my TV and my iMac as well as my iPhone. It's pretty pathetic that such a simple feature doesn't work. I use subtitles for everything i watch. Netflix, Disney, Prime all have it fine, heck even Youtube does a better job with their auto captions 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

This is a huge problem. Is there any way to use any of the older versions of NOW TV players that some people mentioned that the subtitles used to work properly in the past?

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Subtitles are absolutely rubbish for me too. Is there any customer servicewe can contact directly? 

 

This is an absolutely shocking for a service provider. Subtitles are a basic necessity, and they can't even provide that. 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I've been watching true blood and now the rookie and the subtitles are not working.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Just got my new BT TV Now TV The other day and got it wset up Ready to watch films as a family as we do with subtitles / closed caption as we have two deaf family members.  However after spending hours and hours trying to figure out why I can’t get subtitles to work on all the new films as per the blurb on the sales pitch and trying to watch movies and the deaf family members not having a clue what’s going on in the film and getting frustrated and feeling isolated. And those that can hear feel guilty and trying to explain it and ruining the whole enjoyment of it all for everyone....I find out on the Now TV website hidden away out of main view that Now TV ..*** DO NOT***provide subtitles for those Subscribers with BT TV !  
WHAT ?!
So what a complete, total waste of my time and money and subscribing to it via my BT account.   I am waiting on a reply to my direct enquiry why this is the case, because at the moment @after struggling with it,  I feel Really Angry And frustrated and disgusted that in this day and age the disability of deafness is being openly discriminated in this way and from the stream of comments on here on subject is being ignored for months and months On end .  Shame on NOW TV.

RoyB
Legend

@Anonymous User 

 

Not quite,

 

Full NowTV has only been available on YouView boxes very recently, as has the option to subscribe via BT TV, and they are still ironing out the wrinkles.

 

One of these wrinkles is subtitles, which we hope they are actively working on providing in the future.

 

But it is certainly the case that until they do, BT should be making the point of explaining this accessibility issue to potential new subscribers, to see if they want to proceed despite this.

 

However, all is not lost; get a £20 NowTV Stick, which does provide subtitles (mostly, as NowTV support for them can still be a bit patchy, and nobody with deaf family members should settle down to watch something without somebody checking first that subtitles are available), and you should find that the NowTV account details you have from BT will let you log on to the Stick.

 

But you may prefer to cancel your NowTV subscription with BT - and hopefully you are still within the cooling-off period, or BT will accept that what they have sold you does not suit your needs - and subscribe directly with NowTV, until the YouView box app has subtitles, if ever.

 

And perhaps BT would like to buy you the Stick in small recompense for what they have put you through?

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
Anonymous User
Not applicable
"which does provide subtitles (mostly, as NowTV support for them can still
be a bit patchy, and nobody with deaf family members should settle down to
watch something without somebody checking first that subtitles are
available),"

Somewhat of an understatement considering the number of posts in this thread
- I would in no way recommend NOWtv on any format to someone who relied on
subtitles for some reason, its just not fit for purpose in this respect.

I'm amazed they haven't been publically confronted about it tbh, its
completely discriminatory which is this day and age is very clearly not
tolerated.
Anonymous User
Not applicable

I use four streaming services, including NowTV. NowTV hands down has the worst, most unreliable subtitles I've seen, to the point that I find it baffling they offer them at all. I can't remember when it was the last time I enabled subtititles and either one of these things happened:

  • I got a single line of frozen subtitles that was completely out of sync from what was happening on screen
  • I got subtitles that seemed to work, but toot about 2 minutes at most to freeze
  • Nothing

 

Right now turning on subtitles seems to be a guaranteed way of getting a frustrating experience, and the fact that it's been a problem or so long and they haven't fixed it yet doesn't give massive confidence in how much weight NowTV puts on customer experience.