Dynamic Subtitles in Cinematic Virtual Reality

Cinematic Virtual Reality has been increasing in popularity in recent years. Watching 360 degrees movies with a Head Mounted Display, the viewer can freely choose the direction of view, and thus the visible section of the movie. Therefore, a new approach for the placements of subtitles is needed. There are three main issues which have to be considered: the position of the subtitles, the speaker identification and the influence for the VR experience. In our study we compared a static method, where the subtitles are placed at the bottom of the field of view, with dynamic subtitles, where the position of the subtitles depends on the scene and is close to the speaking person. This work-in-progress describes first results of the study which point out that dynamic subtitles can lead to a higher score of presence, less sickness and lower workload.(1)