It seems to be a regular complaint both online and in newspapers about the poor sound quality of TV shows or movies or to be more accurate the inaudibility of what characters are actually saying. This can be due to a number of issues such as poor audio mixing and actors speaking "naturally" aka mumbling. It shouldn't be an issue in the cinema with a properly set up sound system though sometimes they can be too loud even for a cinema. At home many people buy sound bars or surround sound systems to get better sound quality from their TVs but these don't solve all the issues. I live with my parents and we have a surround sound system for our main TV which is great if we are all watching TV at the same time. It's not so great if one person is watching the TV and the others are doing other things and are getting disturbed by the high noise levels. There is a regular issue with shows and movies having whisper level dialogue only for an action scene to suddenly pump up the volume. This has been a problem with trying to watch movies at home as you have to keep constantly putting the volume up and down.
I'm not sure exactly when but I eventually gave up and started to use subtitles when watching TV by myself. It means I can actually sit and enjoy what I'm watching rather than be worried that it's far too loud or having to constantly increase and decrease the volume. It can be a bit hit and miss at times, on Sky TV the subtitles aren't always 100% accurate and there is also this annoying thing where they take a few seconds to kick in after you have fast forwarded through adverts or paused so you have to account for that in order to not miss anything. The subtitles on Netflix are great especially since they are just plain white readable text and they immediately show up unlike with Sky.
Obviously subtitles have some disadvantages due to their nature of appearing before dialogue is actually spoken so potentially spoiling a surprise or a joke but I think people should be more open minded about them. They are not as distracting as you might think and they take the stress of worrying about volume levels and not being able to enjoy a show because you are struggling to hear what characters are actually saying. Being open minded about subtitles also opens the door to enjoying shows or movies in a foreign language such as the recent Oscar winner Parasite (which I haven't managed to see yet). A few months ago we watched Narcos on Netflix of which large parts of the dialogue are in Spanish. You quickly get used to it and it doesn't detract from enjoying the show.
Of course one other option if you are watching by yourself is headphones or in my case streaming audio either through my Cochlear mini mic via a standard audio cable or through my Cochlear phone clip via Bluetooth directly to my hearing aid. I've found that I usually don't need subtitles when I do that and I can mute the mics on my BAHA's so I am only getting the audio from whatever is streaming to them. Though I do get a bit paranoid about having the volume up too high sometimes, I really don't want to add tinnitus onto my list of medical issues! There is also the issue of it being a drain on the BAHA batteries and having the phone clip or mini mic charged and ready to go. When I eventually move out I may look into purchasing a TV streamer accessory that would just sit near the TV and be able to be plugged in for electricity.
As with the complaints about THAT Game of Thrones episode where you could barely see anything I think the people who make TV shows and movies need to remember that at the end of the day people just want to be able to clearly see and hear what is going on without having to sit in a dark room with a large expensive TV or having an expensive sound system that is perfectly set up. I'm also sure actors would like to for the effort they put in to be worth it with people actually being able to hear and understand what is being said.
Thanks for reading,
James
