Closed Bug 1879903 Opened 2 years ago Closed 2 years ago

Movie subtitle is shown in black (which is supposed to be white: Google Chrome shows it in white.) resulting hardly readable state

Categories

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect)

Product:
Core
Component:
Audio/Video: Playback
Version:
Firefox 122
Platform:
x86_64
Windows 10
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: ishikawa, Unassigned)

Details

Attachments

(2 files)

movie subtitle shown in black (this is supposed to be white)
108.92 KB, image/jpeg
Details
image.jpg
73.30 KB, image/jpeg
Details

I am watching a movie title with subtitle in Prime Video at Amazon Japan site.
I am watching it under Windows 10.

I found it rather hard to believe that the subtitle was shown in black and hardly readable.
Has Amazon screwed up the provision of the subtitle? Hardly likely with so many subscribers.
Checking various things, eventually I found out that Google Chrome shows the subtitle in white.
With Chrome, the subtitle is readable as it should be. All is well there.

Something is wrong with the Firefox renderer.

I am attaching a captured movie screen with hardly readable subtitle.

I suspect that Nvidia graphics driver may have something to blame. I have read that Corel WinDVD pro 11 player does not run peroperly with the latest Nvidia driver since Nvidia removed some APIs of old MS graphics API set which Corel depended on it. (Corel WinDVD Pro 11 player runs fine on another PC with Radeon card.)

In any case, this is bad. One more reason to stay away from Firefox for movie play.
More and more sites are excluding Firefox from the recommended browser for viewing videos.

If you are curious, the title URL is https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0CQ5K5WV6/
You need a Japanese amazon prime member account to watch it.
(The story is like Crimson Tide only in this case, a sub captain goes rogue, and the geopolitical setting is a bit absurd.)

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Graphics' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Component: Untriaged → Graphics
Product: Firefox → Core

Hmm, I'm not sure how these subtitles are drawn, is Firefox entirely responsible for them or is the site involved in choosing colors?

I have absolutely no idea.
That google chrome can show the subtitle in white as opposed to Firefox,
it could be

  • Firefox is free to choose the color, but
  • more likely some type of CSS-like hints are given by the Amazon service and
    the browser picks up the color based on hints.

I wonder if there are other similar reports.

I'm going to try audio/video component, perhaps they know how these subtitles are drawn.

Component: Graphics → Audio/Video: Playback

For comparison, could you add a screenshot of how the same subtitle looks in Chrome? It seems to me that if it were simply drawn in white, it'd be hard to read the part "（竹上）" that's on a light background. Do they also add some kind of background behind the text, or contrasting borders on the glyphs, to ensure readability?

Flags: needinfo?(ishikawa)
Attached image image.jpg —

I don't have an account, but I can play this trailer:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/video/detail/B0B6T1NZC9/

I think you can choose the color of the subtitles.

Thanks for finding that. So seems this is user chooseable, so nothing Firefox specific. If that is incorrect please feel free to re-open.

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 2 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID

My bad.
I also found out that it is choosable. I have no idea why my firefox installation chose black subtitle. I have not used subtitle for some time, maybe at least a few years and thus not sure if I changed it myself.

Sorry for the noise.

Flags: needinfo?(ishikawa)
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