I always use subtitles even though my hearing is, as far as I'm aware, perfectly fine. But I'll often notice the subtitles show off-screen dialog or [off-screen sound] that I am completely unable to hear. Without the subtitles I would have no idea it even happened.
I'm sure I've said it here before but I would love, love, love if movies/TV allowed sound control similar to video games: a dialog slider, a background music slider, a sound effects slider, etc. I don't understand why Netflix (or any other streaming platform, really) doesn't make this a priority for their original programming.
Not exactly what you're looking for, but many sports fans have discovered if they disconnect the center channel of their surround sound system, they can effectively mute the commentators without muting the rest of the broadcast.
I used to do exactly that to remove lead vocals and guitar lines in songs I wanted to jam with. I think it accomplishes the same thing as stereos with the Karaoke switch. The mono stuff (in dead centre) is removed by switching the +/- on one side and then recombined in the same way to produce the phase cancellation needed for the center alone, left without center, and right without center for Dolby 3Stereo.
There's another (but vaguely related) trick for getting the rear Left and Right channels, and then add a simple low bypass filter for full Dolby 5.1.
If you don't have a center channel in your stereo, but you do have a setting for Stereo Widening, there is another technique: Reverse the phase of one of your speakers by simply plugging in the + and - to their opposites, and then clicking on Expand or Widen or whatever your kit calls it. The middle / mono content will still be there, but only barely.
> I'll often notice the subtitles show off-screen dialog or [off-screen sound] that I am completely unable to hear. Without the subtitles I would have no idea it even happened.
Agree, it's a feature I really appreciate, especially when an off-screen character says something crucial to the plot but hard to hear. I also get to read lyrics to songs on the soundtrack that I would otherwise have no idea of.
Separate volume sliders would be great for nature documentaries. The BBC doesn’t half over-dramatize with their scores, yet the footage is absolutely captivating. To watch it without the music (or even, dare I say it, without Attenborough’s narration) would create a very different experience.
For me the [off-screen sound] portions are more annoying and seem to be included in most subtitles (I am aware of "normal" subtitles vs. SDH, but often the former also include extra information).
To fix that I usually preprocess them with subclean[1], i.e. extract the subtitles with `ffmpeg -i IN out.srt` in clean and use that srt file. There are some players with cleanup options, but I never found them comprehensive enough.
Also, separate subtitle tracks would be awesome, or a slider for "how much information" you want displayed.
I'm sure I've said it here before but I would love, love, love if movies/TV allowed sound control similar to video games: a dialog slider, a background music slider, a sound effects slider, etc. I don't understand why Netflix (or any other streaming platform, really) doesn't make this a priority for their original programming.