I see on a lot of commercials (most frequently car commercials) the disclaimers are not just small and shown for a short period but are actually kind of blurry, like the letters don’t have a sharp edge to them. So:
Eh, I haven’t noticed it. I have a habit of looking for them too (for comical reasons).
That said, I have a 60" 1080p HDTV, so maybe that helps.
Or it couild be that you’re just getting older. Have you noticed if the small print on your asprin bottle has been harder to read lately?
This question comes up here every now and then. I think the advertisers’ claim might be that as long as the disclaimer appears on screen, then we have been warned not to take the claims too seriously, even though the disclaimer was not readable.
Personally, I would consider that acceptable IF there was a way to obtain a readable version of the disclaimer. For example, if there would be a phone number where I could call and they would mail me a copy of the disclaimer AND the ad, I’d consider that to be fair.
My pet peeve: It’s bad enough when the disclaimer is totally unreadable. What’s worse is when a few key words are readable, and catch my interest, but I cannot read it fast enough, and now it’s gone. Very frustrating!
I just remembered one diclaimer:
It’s a truck comercial. The guy hooks his truck up to the Space shuttle and begins to tow it. The small disclaimer on the bottom of the screen read: DO NOT ATTEMPT
That sucks too, because I had every intention of driving my truck down to NASA, hooking my truck to the shuttle and driving off with it.
For me at least, by far the biggest difference between HD and regular TV is the sharpness of on-screen text and graphics. I don’t really notice much difference in the rest of the picture, but captions etc are pin-sharp on HD, just like text on a computer monitor, but always “shimmery” and blurred on regular-definition.
My first job out of college was as a paste-up artist for a small newspaper’s advertising department. At least once, we had a customer ask us specifically to make the small print unreadable. I kind of half-complied.
That’s the only one you’re aware of? Maybe the word “disclaimer” means different things to different people, but the ones that I think the OP is talking about are quite common in ads for cars and credit cards, and are full of tiny print about the financial terms of the deal that they are offering. It usually fills the lowest 20-40% of the screen. Sometimes even the entire screen.
I’ve noticed that too. Unfortunately, although HD usually makes the text clear enough to read, it still doesn’t allow enough time to read the whole thing.
The first time I watched HDTV, I was amazed that the disclaimers were actually readable. I saw a commercial for a diet product, can’t remember which one-except the product featured cartoon characters
The disclaimer read:
“Results not typical. Cartoons lose weight easily. Real people need diet and exercise to lose weight.”
Really???
So, apparently I’m not the only one, anybody with an Standard def tv gets the blurriness.
So, does anybody know if any of these disclaimers have ever been challenged in court for being unreadable?
This is the question of interest!
The phenomenon must be substantially the same as with car advertisements on the radio,
the final moments of which consist of a lengthylegalistictiradeofmumbojumbothatistimecompressed-tomakeitsoundlikeallonewordspokenincomprehensiblyfastwiththeresultthatitisinfactincomprehensible but at least they can claim they advised you because some regulation says they have to.
What’s even worse are the radio ads where they do the fast-talking at the beginning of the ad. When it’s at the end of the ad, you are at least have some context and might be prepared to listen for it. When it just comes out of the blue at the beginning, you have no idea what that guy might be mumbling about.
As far as television goes, that’s why God invented the DVR. You can pause, get your glasses, and walk up close to the screen and take all the time you need to try to figure it out.
My favorite disclaimer: An automobile ad shows a customer going on a test drive and doing all sorts of high-speed stunt driving while the salesman sits terrified. The small print at the bottom says “You will never, ever be allowed to do this on a test drive.”
At least it makes sense that the letters would get smaller with the advent of HD, as they have a vested interest in obscuring them. It makes no sense why this happens with subtitles, though. I’m still sitting just as far away from my TV as before, if not a little big further since the TV is flat.
Movies seem to have figured this out, but not games.
Do you imagine that anybody, anytime, anywhere ever actually cares to hear what those breathlessly fast-talking mandated car ad announcements are saying? Even a listener who’s actually interesting in buying a car?
This question also leads right back to the OP’s question, Is it legal? And the follow-up question: Has it ever been challenged in court?
I do. Sometime a few words of it catches my attention, like, “Huh? That’s interesting!” but I don’t even know if I heard it correctly, let alone be able to look into it further.