If you're like me, you like to have subtitles on when you're watching movies and shows.One reason is because I watch quite a lot of foreign-language content, like anime, and the other is that no one can hear anything the actors are saying anymore, thanks to modern audio mixing.Add How-To Geek on Google Add as Preferred Source Follow on Google Discover Both of my current TVs (a TCL mini-LED and LG OLED) have decent HDR performance, but I have noticed that in some streaming apps the subtitles are that it can actually hurt my eyes.
It's not a huge deal in a brightly lit room, but if we're watching TV with the lights dimmed in the evenings, it can legitimately ruin the experience.If you're just now realizing you've been squinting at subtitles for all the wrong reasons, the good news is that there's often a fix.HDR subtitles can be the brightest thing in the room The words are burned into your soul There are two issues at play.
Either your TV is capable of extreme brightness, and so white subtitles are being coded at the maximum brightness that set can produce, or you have an OLED where the extreme contrast still makes those subtitles a strain on your eyes.If you have a mini-LED TV or a TV with another form of local dimming, you can also get a completely different but just as annoying issue in the form of "bloom." While modern mini-LEDs are great at controlling bloom, bright white subtitles on a dark background are essentially the worst-case scenario for this technology.Your subtitles aren't necessarily following the movie's brightness They're just locked in Most of the time, subtitles aren't "burned in" to the video itself but are a separate graphic overlay.
In other words, they just stay at a constant brightness level regardless of how dark or bright the scene is.This is an issue that streaming app developers can address, of course.Using data pulled from the video feed to adapt subtitle brightness, but if your subs are too white and too bright, that's clearly not happening.
In , it describes exactly the sorts of things television content producers need to do so that graphics don't blow out, so it's a known consideration.Your streaming apps may already have the solution They just don't advertise it As you might already have realized, the trick here is to make the subtitles something other than high-contrast pure white.The issue exists because the subs aren't burned into the video, but at the same time this means you can potentially change how subtitles are rendered.
It's an essential accessibility feature, and subtitle modification settings don't exist to reduce HDR glare or mini-LED bloom, but some of the options end up being useful for this anyway.So, what can you do? If you can adjust the subtitle size to be smaller, and it doesn't bother you, then that will also reduce the total bright area.It's not a complete fix, but subtitle size might be the only thing you can tweak in some cases.
Paradoxically, making the subs can also reduce their brightness, as your TV's brightness limiter might kick in if too much of the screen is super-bright.Close The best settings are ones that change the color or opacity of the subtitles.Making the subtitles opaque means they take on the color of the frame behind them and effectively cludge an integration together.
However, if they are too see-through, that can make them harder to read in some scenes.Not good.Changing the color to yellow or gray, for example, will drop the brightness as well, since only pure white is going to trigger that maximum white-hot glare.
You may also have the option to give your subs a background.So you could put black subtitles on a light grey box.This blocks a little more of the picture, but it might be a good consistent solution visually.
Each streaming app has different menus and options for subtitle modification, and the same streaming platform might offer it on one TV, but not another.So your best bet is to open up the app's settings and explore what's available.Sometimes, as with Amazon Prime Video, you can even modify what subs look like while the video is playing, which I personally think is the best solution.
Your TV or streaming box might control subtitles instead In case you're out of luck looking for subtitle options in the settings or accessibility options of each specific app, you should also check out the device-level settings of your streaming box.If an app relies on an OS feature to render subtitles, the controls might actually be in the device's own settings.
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