Subtitles/closed captions not working properly

[Anonymous User]

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.

[Anonymous User]

I hardly think my suggestion - resulting in a handful of people posting a legitimate question about a company's service (or lack thereof in the case of hearing impaired customers) on FB/Twitter - would equate to a DoS attack, 'broh'...but I'm very grateful for your concern...😂

If the BiB want to visit me for suggesting as such I'm fine with that - perhaps the resulting media coverage that would certainly follow would raise the profile of the issue (the issue that's a year old and counting and been completely ignored). In this day and age I'm kind of surprised NOW haven't been done for discrimination against a minority group under some random Human Rights legislation!

I cancelled my subscriptions to NOW some time ago and use Amazon Prime, Netflix et cetera - I have only not deleted my account here in hope of one day getting a notification saying they've bothered to fix it 🤣🤣🤣

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User 

I hardly think your exhortation of people to ‘spam’ would be taken to equate to ‘a handful of people posting a legitimate question‘.

But anyway, you would perhaps be better employed asking other users if they get this problem of subtitles going out of sync on laptops; and if they do, whether they have comparable issues on other streaming players.

[Anonymous User]

* You two are priceless 'you would perhaps be better employed asking
other users if they get this problem of subtitles going out of sync on
laptops; and if they do, whether they have comparable issues on other
streaming players' - did you actually bother reading the contents of this
thread????

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User 

Well enough to spot you using selective quotation to try to skirt round your call to disrupt NowTV’s business, certainly.

[Anonymous User]

You said (selective quotation btw? what are you on about? I was replying to the one post you've  directed at me - what else would I quote?! 😂😞

"you would perhaps be better employed asking other users if they get this problem of subtitles going out of sync on laptops; and if they do, whether they have comparable issues on other streaming players."

If you'd bothered to actually read the threads content, instead of just joining in to jump to NOWs defence (for what reason I have no idea, I'm going to guess you're not hearing-impaired though!), you would've already noted the majority of the threads posts consist of people complaining that subtitles haven't worked properly since September 2019, that they still don't work, suggesting its not platform dependent at all, and that other streaming services don't have the issue (even YouTube's automatically generated voice to text works better).

Instead you've just selectively read/referred to my one or two posts about using NOWs social media to bring focus to the issues they are ignoring - and ignored the threads actual content/purpose? How reasonable.

I urge anyone reading this last page's drivel to start on page one for some context. Funny you haven't seen fit to comment before now? Perhaps you see nothing wrong with the issue? Or you agree with discrimination against certain demographics maybe?

In your reply (before editing it), you said I was "using selective quotation to  try to avoid having to apologise for exhorting people to disrupt NowTV’s business". Hilarious. And I'm not skirting around anything. I will happily apologise when they fix the not fit for purpose elements of their premium TV service (NOT just my opinion, again, go read the thread from the start 🙄) and stop discriminating against the hearing-impaired - until then I will, like others have said in this thread, give my money to other services - that are 100% functional.

I find it quite amusing that I have gained promotion to the rank of 'Scholar' since my initial comment upset you! If this pointless to-ing and fro-ing persists I may make Legend-status like you Roy! 😫

[RoyB]

hi @Anonymous User 

The problem with your rather intemperate ‘spam’ suggestion Is that it takes away from what the thread is about, and we need to get over that before we can discuss the thread on its merits.

But at the point we might be doing that, you go off on another one, showing that you know nothing about where I am coming from.

Yes, I am rated Legend, which was once a status to be reckoned with. But the rampant grade inflation which NowTV introduced here, misguidedly in my opinion, and which you remarked on as making you a Scholar already, makes it less grand than it once was. 

Not to mention that people already cross with NowTV can now make just one posting and suddenly be called Advocate. Which they don’t feel they are, and this just makes them crosser still 😢

Personally, I would like to see the grades go back, even if I then drop to Elite or lower. But what is still meaningful is the three stars by my name here.

But you are quite wrong about my attitude to subtitle issues, which I have enlarged on in my earlier post here.

[ukbobboy]

@RoyB 

Hi Roy

You know, I'd rather see the grades drop altogether rather than maintain their almost meaningless titles.

Anyway, I salute you for trying to maintain cordial relations with Disco Rich, he is clearly not interested and unable to bend or concede on any point. 

So, what is the point?

BTW, are you good at setting up Win 10 laptops? I just got one and I am getting through it bit by bit but I understand there are certain features in Win 10 that should be turned off, do you know what these features are?

I would be grateful that if you knew you could let me know.

UK Bob

[RoyB]

@ukbobboy 

Windows setup is a bit OT for the Community and for this thread, but I will PM you on this when I get a quiet hour or so.

[ukbobboy]

@RoyB 

Cheers Roy

It'll be cool whenever you're ready.

UK Bob

[Anonymous User]

Edited: to link user.

As a HoH individual myself, I find your dismissive attitude quite disrespectful, @RoyB. I cancelled my subscription to NowTV quite a long time ago after finding that the service is completely inaccessible to me regardless of which device was used - that includes laptops, desktop computers wherein I tried multiple browsers, and the NowTV stick (I actually tried two of these). As you can clearly see from the previous 6 pages of responses this is an ongoing issue which the inept owners of this streaming service refuse to address. 

It's been noted multiple times that other services manage to provide usable closed captions and subtitles (albeit not always perfect), and yet a year on from the original post the captions have still not been fixed. 

The law states that for any entertainment media (film, television series etc), that has been broadcast on TV, closed captions must legally be provided. NowTV provides access to shows which have been broadcast on TV, and they are subject to Ofcom's regulations under ODSP providers. While there is a grey area on ODSP providers depending on the jurisdiction they fall under (Netflix for example do not fall under UK regulation), I would expect this company to want to be inclusive and provide equality of access.

Evidently they do not.