So its officially launched? Will they keep the programs same like the test ones?

Hope they gonna air more movies with proper schedule and maybe some English series at night

Agreed. We need English entertainment back in our free TV market; ntv7 was once my fav go-to English content.

FTA TV really needed some good English based contents... Lack of it currently

taiwanese fund can tahan or not

Just checked MYTV a few mins ago. Suke TV has officially continue its broadcast. Same with MYTV Mana-Mana

And... it's dark again

True, but now back again LOL

8TV on Unifi TV is now back in HD after dropping to SD due to technical issues.

Meanwhile, there are excessive failures on TV3's showing of Silent. At least 3 of the episodes (shown across few weeks ago) have poor timing/no subtitles issue, including today's episode.

This post has been edited by shaun_kok: Dec 14 2024, 07:25 PM

At this point, they could’ve just download online subtitles instead before on-air

Those who are interested, can watch it from fansubbers, or watch via Tonton or via official platforms. There are subtitles readily available for this drama - and these are significantly superior than TV3's showing.

Not to mention the cuts to accommodate the 1 hour broadcast slot and even Islamic prayers at this timeslot.

As they are not going to dub anything foreign in Malay (which in my opinion, it should have be done for every foreign drama show on Malaysian TV, with dual sound option available), they could have go for hard subtitles mode (burn into the drama) - like what they had done for Korean dramas in the past for TV9/8TV - saving the trouble of not so stable subtitles.

This post has been edited by shaun_kok: Dec 14 2024, 08:18 PM

As they are not going to dub anything foreign in Malay (which in my opinion, it should have be done for every foreign drama show on Malaysian TV, with dual sound option available)
None of any Malaysian digital TV channel even have dual sound option...
I highly doubt that Media Prima would even want to pay more fees to MYTV Broadcasting to provide multiple audio tracks anyway.

Long story short, don't need to rely much on FTA channels to watch foreign language content.
If already tried very best to raise complaints regarding the subtitle issue, yet they don't address it properly, then better just forget it.
It's a free-to-air channel anyway.

Agreed, they should do the subtitles like Korean dramas

It's called FTA channel for a reason...

We really cannot demand much...

Since it's very price sensitive... Getting foreign contents & even to have it dual language is all involved addional cost...

Unless they're given monthly subsidies to operate the station broadcasting....

Which only RTM does have that....

This post has been edited by nexona88: Dec 15 2024, 02:13 PM

Agreed, but it will cost many money to do it, because they have to hire and paid dubbings for this

I'm pretty sure the subtitles are hard subtitles since Media Prima doesn't use the soft sub feature (only RTM uses it). I suspect something happen during the burning process that cause their subs to fail

Although it is hard subs (as Media Prima's broadcast system never sent close captions), the subtitles is clearly "soft" in their playout system, and they added it, before it is sent to the transmission chain (example : Astro, MYTV DTT). Hence all the subtitling issues - with one of the episodes having zero Malay subtitles at all due to the technical fault on Media Prima's side.

If the subtitles is "hard" (like the Chinese subtitles already embed on the Chinese dramas shown on 8TV, by the content provider itself), such technical issues won't appear. The downside of "hard subtitles" is you won't be able to edit it, without redoing the whole video - so the broadcasters who do so, will often store both versions (the one with "hard subtitles" and "clean version"), just in case. The "clean version" of the drama are the variant most favoured by TV broadcasters and OTT providers like Netflix - as it provides the most flexibility.

The Malay subtitles are still "soft" in this case, and is prone to technical issues that has appeared during the showing of Japanese drama "Silent" multiple times on TV3.

This post has been edited by shaun_kok: Dec 16 2024, 11:25 PM

Let's take overseas broadcasters for comparison. Mediacorp (Singapore) and TVB (Hong Kong) only ever send hard subtitles during analogue broadcast era all the way until the end of analogue broadcast (as it is not technically possible to send Chinese subtitles via the analogue Teletext - Mediacorp never utilize the feature. Hong Kong never had any analogue Teletext service.)

However, the subtitles are completely "soft" in their playout system - it was added to the picture, before the analogue signal is sent out to the public. Hence, it becomes hard subtitles, while we watch the show on TV.

In the past, it is completely possible for multiple languages subtitles to come out on analogue TV (TVB Pearl : Chinese + English ; Mediacorp : Chinese + English - common on Channels 8 and U, or Chinese + Malay, for Channel 5)

However, when digital broadcasts started, they decided to deliver subtitles, completely in soft mode (closed captions), and in multiple languages (HK : Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English; Singapore : English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil), as it is feasible doing so.

All the repeats (which was first shown with only hard subtitles available), suddenly become available in soft subtitles when it it's repeated, if the subtitles was itself provided in the first place.

However, exceptions does remain. TVB remains providing their news in "soft" subs (the subtitles remains hard at end broadcast), and does provide their drama in hard subtitles while exporting to some broadcasters such as Mediacorp and Media Prima.

The retransmission of TVB channels in Guangdong uses hard subtitles - the subtitles itself is soft (they picked up the off air digital signal - where it is sent with closed captions. The cable provider then re-encode the signal - with Traditional Chinese subtitles selected, and use the feed for censorship and ad insert purposes). Fun fact: Mainland China usually broadcast only in hard subtitles, and no soft subtitles was ever provided on broadcast there.

However, export broadcast may still come with clean feed - such as the likes on iQiyi International OTT.
I have said before that many OTT providers/broadcasters prefer the 100% clean version without any embedded subtitles in video - hard subtitles in video, is usually an instant reject.

Meanwhile, for Mediacorp, they provided soft Chinese subtitles for their own Chinese dramas, but it becomes hard while they broadcast dramas from Taiwan, China and Hong Kong on TV broadcast. These can't be turn off even while toggle the settings.
Sometimes this is the case for some Korean dramas - which they imported the Mandarin dub from Taiwan. But in all these cases, English subtitles remained soft.
In the case of Vasantham, they even provided shows in Tamil captions, which was never seen in any form on analogue TV (except Tamil news).

Exception does remain on Mediacorp - news bulletins on Channels 5, 8, Suria and Vasantham only comes with "soft" subtitles - which is added into the broadcast (just like Media Prima's case), before the signal was delivered.

This post has been edited by shaun_kok: Dec 17 2024, 04:00 AM

Hope no reruns of their production movies again.

I think they would do but I hope this channel will broadcast more foreign series and movies after launch