Why are Apple TV+ captions yellow?

[Morac]

I’ve been watching Apple TV+ shows, specifically Monarch Legacy, and when I turn on captions on my Apple TV 4K with tvOS 17.2, the captions are yellow for some reason. If I go into the settings and check the caption styles, the sample shows white text, but Apple TV uses yellow. I’m positive it didn’t used to be yellow and it’s not yellow for other apps, only Apple TV. How can I make it white again?

 

[Morac]

So apparently “English SDH” is yellow and “English CC” is white. I have no idea what the difference is between the 2 as the text is the same, but the default seems to be English SDH.

 

[casperes1996]

Excellent post on the matter IMO

SDH vs. CC: What’s the Difference?

In this blog, we dive into the differences between subtitles for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) vs. closed captions (CC).

www.3playmedia.com

Yellow is often used for subtitles/captions as it is a color that is likely to contrast with media on screen even with low alpha values on the backdrop so it stands out while maintaining visibility of the content

 

[Morac]

Excellent post on the matter IMO

SDH vs. CC: What’s the Difference?

In this blog, we dive into the differences between subtitles for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) vs. closed captions (CC).

www.3playmedia.com

Thanks, but that post has a lot of conflicting information in it. For example specifying that SDH is for hard of hearing, but then later saying CC is for hard of hearing. It also says CC doesn’t work over HDMI which is not the case as my Apple TV is connected via HDMI and both English SDH and English CC work.

Speaking of, when English CC is selected, the English SDH changes to just English. None of that explains why the Apple TV is ignoring the subtitle/caption style settings and displaying yellow for SDH.

 

[casperes1996]

Thanks, but that post has a lot of conflicting information in it. For example specifying that SDH is for hard of hearing, but then later saying CC is for hard of hearing. It also says CC doesn’t work over HDMI which is not the case as my Apple TV is connected via HDMI and both English SDH and English CC work.

It's conflicting in the sense that the article describes both historical meanings and current meanings without always making clear what refers to what. As the article says, the terms are a tad overloaded with different meanings as well.

But CC and SDH are for hard of hearing or deaf watchers. Historically speaking, in North America mostly, the differentiation was that SDH was burnt into the footage and CC was delivered by a separate channel and the display of the CC content was not in the video file itself, but performed by the viewing equipment.
Plugging an old video player into an old TV that supports both HDMI and composite cables might do nothing when you enable CC as the channel for the CC content is not received by the TV and it may have been its responsibility to compose the signals together. However, with newer video players they may compose the signal before sending it over HDMI to the TV solving that problem.

For a service like AppleTV+ I believe that the CC option gives CC-content to tvOS for it to compose and display and SDH composes the content in the TV app, by the content providers. I am not entirely certain though, as the article says, usage has gotten a tad muddy over the years as technology advanced and terminology didn't get updated universally among all users of the terms.