Expat Community > Colombia

Andresen
Joined 2012
Posts: 1766

Do you lose subtitles using HDMI?

10 years ago

I have a laptop computer and a Netflix account which allows me to watch movies with Spanish subtitles. My idea is to buy an HDMI cable so we can see American movies on my girlfriend’s television (it’s a 2 year old large screen TV). I will be able to hear the movie in its original English and she will be able to see the Spanish subtitles.

My question is with the HDMI cable will we lose the ability to see subtitles?

I am concerned because I found the following quote on Wikipedia.

“The HDMI standard was not designed to pass closed caption data (for example, subtitles) to the television for decoding.[57] As such, any closed caption stream must be decoded and included as an image in the video stream(s) prior to transmission over an HDMI cable to be viewed on the DTV. This limits the caption style (even for digital captions) to only that decoded at the source prior to HDMI transmission. This also prevents closed captions when transmission over HDMI is required for upconversion. For example, a DVD player that sends an upscaled 720p/1080i format via HDMI to an HDTV has no way to pass Closed Captioning data so that the HDTV can decode it, as there is no line 21 VBI in that format.”

This kind of reminds me of my struggles to learn Spanish. I might understand all the words in a sentence but not the meaning.

I would appreciate advice from anyone who has accomplished, or failed, with this.

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Do you lose subtitles using HDMI?

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