Ranking and comparison of English subtitles on different streaming platforms

Hello! I created this discussion to make it easier for everyone to debate and find out which platform offers the best English subtitles for this series. This discussion is also intended to highlight the best translations of single sentences, in case the translation on one platform, which might not be the one with the overall best quality, stands out from the rest. 

My wordings weren't clear I was referring on  on the non-voiced on screen texts such as the documents, messages (e.x. the message that shaoyou erased), their wechat display name, and the card message that wasn't initially read/voiced. Might've nitpicked much on the preference, i'm used to seeing subs with those part. Reading the novel some small untranslated parts kinda adds interesting details to the characters.

I am reposting my updated first message to make it easier for people to notice the new content in the discussion. 

I have now compared the subtitles on the scene where Mr. Shen had gathered all Mr. Sheng’s exes from episode 1 and interrogated Mr. Song.  The services compared were GagaOOLala,  iQIYI, Viki, WeTV / Tencent Video, YOUKU, and YouTube. 

Unfortunately, I don't understand Chinese so I will be comparing the subtitles solely based on the differences of individual lines.  I hope other fans who can understand Chinese could also join the discussion and give their opinion about the accuracy of the translations. Nevertheless, below are my observations. If you would like to review the material I prepared for the comparison, please let me know so I can share it with you.

Based on the comparison, GagaOOLala, WeTV, and YouTube all use the same subtitles. As for other platforms, in general, iQIYI’s subtitles differ the most from the others. I have heard that Viki would use the existing subtitles and then modify them to improve. Based on the comparison, this would also be the case with the series, as Viki’s subtitles are more similar to YouTube’s subtitles than those of Youku (and iQIYI).

When other platforms divide the sentence into several parts, Viki’s subtitles generally display the whole sentence at once. When other platforms use the name Shaoyou (YouTube and iQIYI) or Shao You (Viki), YOUKU uses the name Sawyer. However, they use the name Song Huancheng like other platforms, except for Viki, which has it in the format Song Huan Cheng. As for translations of at least some of the on-screen texts, only iQIYI, Viki, and YOUKU have them. However, YOUKU offers the most on-screen text translations and they are also the most comprehensive ones, making YOUKU the best in this aspect.

(Updated on 2025-07-13T09:32Z)

It was my pleasure. I hope people will find it useful. I agree with you that there were instances when it was difficult to read the subtitles in time. However, based on my observations, the differences in required reading speeds of subtitles have more to do with the individual subtitles and their content than with the original language of the content. As I don't speak Chinese, I unfortunately cannot answer your question about how the Chinese language compares to other languages, especially in the case of series and not real-life situations. I hope someone who speaks Chinese could answer your question. 

Thank you for sharing these insights. It's nice to get an opinion from someone who knows Chinese. The quality of English and the informational content provided in GagaOOLala's subtitles are usually inferior to those of its competitors, which may indeed be a result of using machine or AI translations at least in part. 

Thank you for this important remark. That's true. I checked now, and Viki changed their subtitles and added some on-screen text translations. In other words, my earlier comments only apply to the first version of Viki's subtitles. However, as some people prefer watching the new episode as soon as it is released, I also think it is important to include an assessment of Viki's first version of subtitles. If I have time, I will create a new comparison that includes the latest version of Viki's subtitles. 

Thank you for sharing this additional information, your observations, and your opinions. This is good to know. I compared subtitles five hours after the episode was released, and already then, Viki’s subtitles differed from YouTube’s subtitles in some parts. When I rechecked Viki’s subtitles 46 hours after the episode was released, they had already been improved.



For episode 4, I could attempt to make a broader comparison by taking the first sample as soon as possible after the release and then every 24 hours to gather examples of how Viki’s subtitles improve over time, if time permits. However, as my time is limited and the quality of subtitles is partly subjective, I hope others could also contribute to the discussion by sharing their own opinions about the subtitles.



I hope that, too. At least we can be happy that we received the episodes at the same time as other platforms last Saturday, as Viki sometimes releases episodes later than other platforms.

 M7Bmnczc:

For episode 4, I could attempt to make a broader comparison by taking the first sample as soon as possible after the release and then every 24 hours to gather examples of how Viki’s subtitles improve over time, if time permits.

If you can, I think it would be great to do a comparison of the Viki subs from subs when episode is first posted and then later when hopefully subs have been edited. However, I would not do a check every 24 hours. Due to the fact that it is a volunteer team working to edit episodes, it will definitely take days for them to complete the edit. It will be a minimum of 24 hours just to complete the segmenting of the episode, where volunteers edit and adjust the segments for timing. Then the editors will begin the 3 step process. It will be a much better use of your time to do a second check before the next scheduled posting of episodes. I checked at the Viki show page and the schedule is new eps are posted on Saturdays, For a comparison, I would look at ep. 4 when first posted, and then do a second check on the following Thursday or Friday, right before the next new episodes will post on Saturday.  That would be a better use of your time and give the best chance to see if any improvements were made by the volunteers in the days following the fist posting.