A massive segment of Indian OTT audiences including English speaking viewers still prefer watching English language movies with subtitles. One reason is ostensibly because of the significant difference in the American and Indian English accents. Another reason is not wanting to miss out even a single dialogue especially in scenes where the backdrop music becomes more substantial than foreground dialogues.
But one major downside while watching English films or series with subtitles is that the viewers unwillingly miss out on the actors’ performances and scenic or relevant visuals, amongst other things.
In an apparent measure to solve this audio problem, OTT giant Amazon Prime Video has recently introduced a well-intentioned feature on its mobile and web applications. The new AI-based audio feature is called ‘Dialogue Boost’ and it allows viewers to adjust and make the volume of spoken dialogues louder and clearer without reducing the overall sound including background music.
In India too, the ‘Dialogue Boost’ feature has been made available and can be accessed through the Audio menu on the Amazon Prime Video OTT app. Viewers can select either of ‘English Dialogue Boost: Low’, ‘English Dialogue Boost: Medium’, and ‘English Dialogue Boost: High’ options as per their listening preferences.
However, as of now, Amazon Prime Video has introduced the ‘Dialogue Boost’ feature for a select number of Amazon Original titles. The list presently includes just a few web-series: ‘Jack Ryan’, ‘The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel’, and ‘Harlem’ and some films namely ‘The Big Sick,” “Beautiful Boy” and “Being the Ricardos”. Amazon Prime Video is expected to add the ‘Dialogue Boost’ feature for more titles this year itself.
The ‘Dialogue Boost’ audio feature has come at a good time because previously, there have been multiple ‘low dialogues + high background sound’ complaints from Prime Video users, especially from audio enthusiasts / audiophiles. So, it’s better late than never.
Until now, no other global OTT platform is providing the ‘Dialogue Boost’ feature for its streaming titles. So, if the potential usefulness of Amazon Prime Video’s new audio feature clicks with OTT audiences and finds takers in India and elsewhere, then other OTT platforms like Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar might follow suit. But it all depends on how useful the ‘Dialogue Boost’ turns out to be for audiences.
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