Having subtitles on, even though you can hear fine! Classic vs Dud

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. You do get occasionally get secondary releases or vanilla discs that dispense with a lot of the extra stuff; to be honest I only did some proofreading on GP extras - it might've been for overseas release, I can't remember. The first thing I ever originated subs for was The Book Group (C4 sitcom).

Live subtitling, as PJM says, is a completely different kettle of fish - stenography, respeaking and voice recognition software play a part (though the last two are increasingly being used in "offline" subtitling too).

I'm also loathe to go into the possible shortcomings of subtitling practice; I know only too well what goes on at our end of things...

I suspect it was mainly because I loved reading so damn much after I figured out how to do it at a very, very young age, and felt that my time watching TV was lacking in that department.

this could not be farther from the truth! it's absolutely essential for those times when you don't know the answer and then someone decides to get ice or run the sink or something right as the contestant is answering!

Also used in opera (surtitles, I think its called) and again its even more useful here.

man i wish i had a tv that did that