But while streaming facilities have been around for more than a decade, the main question of whether a new streaming service has value for a subscriber is the content they provide. Do you have any new original TV shows? Do you offer a truly extensive library of essential classics?
But one thing you rarely wonder, if ever, is: are there subtitles or audio tracks in a language other than English?
For the context, according to the Census Bureau, there are at least 60 million other people in the United States over the age of five who can speak a language other than English at home, of which nearly 40 million speak Spanish. Meanwhile, a 2018 report through the Motion Picture Association of America said that Latin moviegoers account for 24% of moviegoers, however, when it comes to major streaming platforms, the dubbing functions and translated subtitles seem sinister.
Of major streaming platforms, only Disney and Netflix will offer subtitles and/or audio tracks that are not in English for a lot of titles in their library. Even its most difficult-to-understand titles, such as Fuzzbucket, Casebusters or The Cat from Outer Space, will offer a selection between dubbing or subtitles (some will offer only one or the other, but the features are there or still) in the language of all the countries in which the streaming platform was introduced or is about to be released (from Spanish to French). Hulu will only offer dubbed Spanish versions of a handful of TV screens and movies, as well as Spanish subtitles for all Hulu originals. AppleTV: It will offer audio and subtitle functions in several languages, adding German and Spanish, but its library is mostly composed of original or acquired content, which makes it particularly smaller than Netflix or Hulu.
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As for the newly introduced maximum streaming platforms, at the time of writing, HBO Max does not offer a selection of subtitles or audio tracks that are not in English. At most, the service includes English dubbing in some of its anime content, such as Studio Ghibli videos, but not in the HBO series and videos that are already available with subtitles and dubbing in the edition of other HBO countries such as HBO Latin America or HBO Nordic. like Game of Thrones or Westworld.
In the case of HBO Max, the company attributes its feature shortage to the immediate release of HBO Max. But things are replaced as soon as possible.
“Because of our competitive launch program, we needed to maintain the existing language support capability of Warner Media’s generation stack, which boosted existing products,” said Andy Forssell, executive vice president and general manager of WarnerMedia and Direct to Consumer, in a supply to Observer. “But with our impending foreign expansion, we will be able to align our multilingual reading paintings to offer more capacity to our national viewers. As we put into effect the life-capacity roadmap we’ve explained for HBO Max, we’ll upload powerful language support and propose UI improvements that will make the variety of subtitles and audio tracks intuitive and frictionless for viewers.”
Ben López, executive director of the National Association of Independent Producers of Latin America, believes that the challenge lies in the network and the executives of the studios that see marketing for Latin America in relation to the United States.
“Many companies, networks and express studios know that there is a thirst for American content in Latin America that wants to be dubbed or subtitled,” Lopez told Observer. “That’s why HBO has its Latin American division, they invest heavily in agreements with operators and satellite deals. But then there’s marketing or any other strategy you have to do for Latinos based in the United States, and they have to take another approach, and not all leaders need to make that effort. It is probably mandatory to ensure that most of the content of all streamers is subtitled or dubbed in Spanish.”
One impediment we found temporarily when researching this article was lack of knowledge or statistics related to subtitles or dubbing availability. If streaming facilities don’t indicate whether others are actually using the language features they offer, there are few incentives for streaming facilities that don’t offer those possible features to start adding language features. Despite reports of the amount of user input knowledge tracked and subsidized through Netflix, neither Netflix nor Disney is willing to open up about language features in your library titles, or even keep track of them. Representatives of either facility declined to say whether they were aware of the features they would offer or whether users actually took advantage of those features, despite multiple requests. Even third-party knowledge corporations such as Parrot Analytics or ReelGood have not been able to provide any data on this topic.
The few data provided by these streaming facilities about their language characteristics is limited to short paragraphs on their visitor service pages. The Disney Help Center has only one short page that says that “For original Disney content, subtitles and dubbing will be available in 16 languages through March 2020.” For library titles, at least six languages will be available at the time of launch (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Dutch) “while The Netflix support medium indicates that possible language selections depend on the viewer’s geographic location”. , you can usually select between five and 7 of the most popular subtitle languages in your area, and the 2 most popular languages for downloaded titles”, while license fees can prevent screens or even screen seasons from running out of subtitles. “Some TV screens may have other resources for each season’s subtitles,” he says. “In some cases, subtitles for seasons that Netflix has proposed before 2018 may not be available on all devices. If you see subtitles for one season but not another, check out some other device to see the season of your selection. “
One of the corporations guilty of offering subtitles and dubbing to streaming giants is Producciones Grande, a Mexico-based translation studio that has worked on streaming titles such as The Mandalorian, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, The Order and the latest Netflix film. The old guard, with Charlize Theron. The company’s chief operating officer, Paulina Grande, is very familiar with the demanding situations of translating a television screen or a film, because it is not enough to say the words.
“You have to be true to the original script,” Says Grande. “Sometimes what they say in English doesn’t correspond to what’s said in Spanish, so it’s about adapting the paintings as much as translating them, and our adapters want to know both script writing and languages, because if not, you’re just part of the paintings.
Like any other component of the film and television production and distribution business, ordering these paintings comes at a cost. But treating translation as a later thought is also at the expense of restricting or alienating a giant segment of potential consumers from those transmission services, as Grande points out. “Now that the broadcast has the leading content producer, having all those titles in all languages means everyone can see and perceive the content, not just a component of the population,” he says.
As more and more studios launch their own broadcast and begin to expand into foreign territories, it becomes even more essential to allow all users to access and enjoy the content they subscribe to. Investing to make them more available isn’t just the right thing to do; it makes intelligent commercial sense. The long-term smart fortune of these platforms will feature market penetration in countries around the world.
We all know how much feeling The Mandalorian caused when it was presented at Disney last year, and it was with the platform that would only be held in the United States, but would Baby Yoda have the phenomenon she has if more than 20% of the population? may not have seen the screen with your enjoyed? Would it be Game of Thrones? As the “streaming war” progresses, the war over translated subtitles and audio tracks remains alien to television.
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