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DVDs with most language options? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6863 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 1 of 8 19 October 2013 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi. I was in a CD/DVD/Blu Ray shop today, and noticed that some movies now have lots of language options. I thought it would be interesting to ask people what their thoughts are on using the different language options on these movies?
I mean, in your experience what movie has the most language options (I saw the fourth Bourne Identity film with options to watch in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Hindi). Anyone else know movies with lots of different options? Edited by FuroraCeltica on 19 October 2013 at 1:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 2 of 8 19 October 2013 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I picked up a new pack of four Dirty Harry movies at Best Buy for $5 and all four of the movies had English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and I think one more.
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| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4251 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 8 19 October 2013 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Language options as in audio track of subtitles? Very rarely do films have any other audio than the original in DVDs sold in Finland, but the subtitles are almost always in Finnish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and in some cases even in Icelandic.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 8 19 October 2013 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I doubt there is a general pattern. If I remember correctly, the first Seinfeld season has additional audio tracks in Spanish, but every season after that has French and German (and no Spanish). Some James Bond movies have one or two additional tracks, say, German/Spanish/French/Hungarian (!?). I think I've seen one that had extra tracks in Turkish.
Subtitles are often provided in anywhere from a handful of languages up to a dozen. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 19 October 2013 at 7:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4442 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 5 of 8 21 October 2013 at 3:07am | IP Logged | ||
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In the Chinese community videos came with subtitles in Chinese characters for many years even before DVDs
came along for people who speak various dialects to be able to watch movies and TV drama series without having to know exactly what was said. In Taiwan, you find all sorts of Hong Kong movies with Traditional Chinese character subtitles. In Singapore there are movies and TV dramas with both English & Simplified Chinese character subtitles. Subtitles are good for learning a new language or want to watch a foreign film but don't know enough of the local language to know what is going on. Even watching a DVD in English I prefer to have close caption (for hearing impaired) or subtitles as an option so that when something was said too quickly I can go back and read the text. There are Bollywood Films from India where most of the dialog is in Hindi but occasionally you'd find an English word or phrase stuck in between. Chinese films from Malaysia & Singapore you find all sorts of English words & phrases mixed in such as "piggy bank" instead of the Chinese equivalent puman 撲滿, the English lorry for truck instead of the Chinese huoche 貨車, ID instead of zhengjian 证件, friend instead of 朋友, OK instead of hao 好, etc. People who like foreign films as myself would not find reading subtitles a problem. There are those who are not into foreign films would find reading subtitles intimidating because it slows you down and prefer only films they can understand without having to read. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alamo Joe Newbie United States Joined 4058 days ago 17 posts - 31 votes | Message 6 of 8 22 October 2013 at 11:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Many of you are in a region 2 location (Europe & Asia), so it shouldn't be too hard to find movies and series with multiple language tracks and subtitles. I'm in region 1 (US & Canada) and I find that many of the DVDs sold here have limited language options. I was looking at Friends season 1 DVD and I noticed that the region 1 DVD only had one audio track and 3 subtitle options. The region 2 DVD had 5 audio tracks and 9 subtitle options.
I prefer to buy region 2 DVDs and since I play them on my computer I can bypass the region locks or the PAL/NTSC signal problem. There are standalone DVD players that can also play all regions and can convert between PAL and NTSC. These are helpful for language learners who want access to DVDs sold in other countries. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 7 of 8 23 October 2013 at 2:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the info, Alamo Joe. I am a technology fool. Can you clarify what you mean about using region 2 DVDs in a computer? If I get region 2 DVDs and put them in my computer will I be able to watch them on my computer's DVD player? Or would I need to do someting special to "bypass the region locks or the PAL/NTSC signal problem"?
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| Alamo Joe Newbie United States Joined 4058 days ago 17 posts - 31 votes | Message 8 of 8 23 October 2013 at 6:46am | IP Logged | ||
The DVD drive on the computer is set to a certain region. In North America it's region 1 by default. You are allowed to switch it a few times (5 times, I think) before it gets locked. So you can play region 2 DVDs but if you go back to playing region 1 DVDs, that will count as a switch. There is software that allows you to make your DVD drive region-free so you won't have to worry about switching back and forth between DVDs from different regions. I use a program called AnyDVD. There is also free software that can do this, but I haven't tried any of them. NTSC and PAL signal compatibility is only a problem with standalone DVD players and TVs. Computers are capable of displaying both NTSC and PAL, so that wouldn't be a problem if you're playing discs on your DVD drive. Europe uses PAL, and North America uses NTSC. So even if you have a DVD player that can play DVDs from different regions, it might not be able to decode the signal. And the TV also has to be capable of receiving the PAL or NTSC signal that's being played. There are standalone DVD players that can convert the signal to whatever your TV is capable of receiving, but those are not typically the ones you find in stores. You could usually find them online and they will specify that they are region free and capabale of NTSC/PAL playback. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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