To answer OSC's question in his current essay. Yep, it happens to everybody. We'll be watching, subtitles off, and somewhere in the movie at random a line of text will pop up and then disappear.
Posted by forensicgeek (Member # 8430) on :
I've never had that happen to me before...but it may be because I like subtitles anyway. So I occasionally use them, and maybe the occasional use prevents it from randomly appearing.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
It doesn't happen to me, but I have found our DVD player turns subtitles on automatically if you stop the movie, turn the DVD player off then turn it back on and start the movie again.
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
I believe that when a DVD player begins to read the second layer of a DVD (all DVDs have two), the movie will glitch. Some glitches are more pronounced than others, blinking off and on, or even briefly flashing subtitles, like the problem OSC described. Other side-effects of the layer switch may include an interruption in audio, but the most common is a short freeze-frame of maybe half a second.
All DVDs are supposed to have a layer switch at some point. I've located that point on 5 DVDs so far; three of those were distributed by Universal. But most DVDs handle the shift so smoothly that you don't notice, usually between chapters, so it fits with the movie.
I don't know if this is what's causing the "haunted" subtitles OSC described, but it's one possibility.