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Here's the thing: Netflix should have done this years ago, and it's a fucking crime that people are still making inaccessible websites. I'm not visually impair

by dthunt 14y ago

Here's the thing: Netflix should have done this years ago, and it's a fucking crime that people are still making inaccessible websites. I'm not visually impaired or hard of hearing, but it irks me when I run into a site that is unusable by people. Especially when you're talking about a wildly popular site like Netflix. Here's the other thing: the technology, and the data, have existed here for several decades. With the exception of old foreign movies where subtitles are burned in, or where subtitles tracks were never produced, they exist, and it's not an unreasonable thing for Netflix to require subtitle tracks be submitted with new content. It's not just subtitles, though, there are also audio tracks to consider. Netflix has droves of anime fans as customers that don't use Netflix to watch anime, because about 95% of it is in English and because subtitles aren't available. Netflix has made a number of really bad decisions around subtitling and audio selection, and frankly, I severely hope they comply with the ruling even as they appeal it. Fixing these features in Netflix is not only about the ADA. In this instance, it will give them a better product.

jerf 14y ago
"Netflix should have done this years ago" Netflix did do it years ago. As far as I know, all Netflix clients now fully support closed-captioning, and also multiple audio streams. (The XBox360 was a bit behind, but it supports it now.) This isn't about Netflix supporting CC, it already does and has for a while. When they receive videos with CC, they make the CC available. This is about Netflix not being able to give videos without CC to anybody, and/or being required to put CC on videos that they were not provided with CC for and, as they say, actually can't CC without violating copyright law (though one imagines that if they are found to be required to add CC that their licensing contract will simply grow a new clause). I mention this because I just read over all the comments as I post this, and nobody else seems to have mentioned this. The tech is there. If your Anime doesn't have the Japanese stream, it's because they weren't provided a Japanese audio stream, not a limitation on Netflix's side, and so on.

by dthunt 14y ago

jerf 14y ago

"Netflix should have done this years ago" Netflix did do it years ago. As far as I know, all Netflix clients now fully support closed-captioning, and also multiple audio streams. (The XBox360 was a bit behind, but it supports it now.) This isn't about Netflix supporting CC, it already does and has for a while. When they receive videos with CC, they make the CC available. This is about Netflix not being able to give videos without CC to anybody, and/or being required to put CC on videos that they were not provided with CC for and, as they say, actually can't CC without violating copyright law (though one imagines that if they are found to be required to add CC that their licensing contract will simply grow a new clause). I mention this because I just read over all the comments as I post this, and nobody else seems to have mentioned this. The tech is there. If your Anime doesn't have the Japanese stream, it's because they weren't provided a Japanese audio stream, not a limitation on Netflix's side, and so on.