Subtitle placement could potentially be a significant issue with future blu-ray releases if the subtitles are placed on the black bars. If the subtitles are fully or patially placed on the black bars, some people will not be able to watch a movie in the way that they want to watch it. This practice impacts two categories:

1. There is trend towards constant image height (CIH) displays mainly aimed at watching movies in their native aspect ratios. These displays do not show black bars and therefore if the subtitles are fully or partially placed on the black bars they cannot be read. If an attempt is made to expose the black bars fully or partially, by distorting the image (yuck!) or the image is shifted upwards to expose the black bars (and cut the top of the image), the picture would look awful and almost unwatchable. Therefore, the CIH displays, which can be used to watch 2.35:1 movies in their full glory, cannot be used if the subtitles are fully or partially placed on the black bars. More and more people will go for this type of displays in the future and placing subtitles in the black bars will create a big problem for the future.

2. The second category is the zoomers. I do not want to debate whether zooming is right or wrong to remove black bars. Whether it is right or wrong, there is a significant amount of population that hate to see black bars on their 16x9 displays when watching 2.35:1 movies. They use the zooming function to remove black bars from the display. Some people use nonlinear stretch and simultaneous zooming to remove black bars. If the subtitles are on the black bars, these people will not be able to watch the movie in the way that they want to watch it.

Two potential solutions for this problem:

1. Do not place the subtitles on black bars, rather place it on the bottom of the picture, IMO, where it should be. This is the way that the motion pictures are subtitled. Since blu-ray is high resolution, the font size can be made smaller and still would be readable due to the increase in blu-ray clarity. Therefore subtitles will not interfere with the picture.
2. Blu-ray has a subtitle repositioning function which needs to be authored on to the disk software. This will allow user to change the font size, colour and placement on the screen. This solution may require additional effort from the author. So I am not sure whether this would be feasible if this causes an additional burden on the authoring process.

I think blu-ray is an opportunity to take Indian movies to the next level globally. The Indian colour palette and the detailed decorations, costumes and dresses will thrive on large HD displays. Therefore it is very important to take this opportunity in the best possible manner without overlooking any aspects of it.

Industry insiders please consider this seriously and provide best advice to the studios to get this right from the start and avoid significant future problems.

I am happy to say that the first Indian blu-ray, Heyy Babyy, which is a very good job overall, has placed the subtitles at the bottom of the picture rather than on the black bars which would avoid future potential problems. Hope this trend will continue.