OT: DVDs - Foreign Language Subtitles

[Guest guest]

The usually have subtitles, but only Spanish and French usually. And they

are on the original DVDs. I don't know if yours are more expensive, because

of the amount of other languages or lack of competition. DVDs are usually the

cheapest the first week they come out. The price pops up after week 1 until

it goes to bargain basement. Butch try ebay or Half.com. I'm not sure if

half.com operates outside of USA. But you could always use your APO box as

these don't weigh much. Just an idea.

 

Later Gator

 

Patty Corapi

 

In a message dated 11/6/2005 6:08:04 PM Eastern Standard Time,

butchbsi writes:

 

Hey y'all,

 

Gotta question on the above. I've not purchased a DVD in the USA before

as I never had a DVD player .. but now I do. The English language DVDs

we find here in Turkey (most all of them are English) have subtitles in

many languages - Greek, Bulgarian, Spanish, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish,

etc., but they are danged expensive .. we paid close to $35 for Black

Hawk Down and I'm sure they are a lot cheaper in the USA.

 

Is it common for DVDs sold in the US to have foreign language subtitles?

Or are they available in the US with foreign subtitles? If so, what is

the high-low range of cost of such DVDs in the US?

 

I tried to do a search engine query on this today and got nowhere fast.

 

Thankee y'all mucho .. keep smiling. :-) Butch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hi Butch,

 

DVD prices = supply and demand (or predicted supply and demand).

Many factors come into the cost of a DVD -- single vs. multiple

disks, single episode vs. whole season (for TV shows), single movie

vs. whole series (for movies, like Star Trek), the number of features

included, whether it's theater version vs. extended version vs.

director's cut version vs. who-knows-what-they'll-think-of-next

version, etc, etc. Production companies do huge marketing surveys to

predict how much demand there will be for a product -- if they think

something will be very popular and people will pay for it because

it's a " collector's item " (like the extended " Lord of the Rings " ),

they'll charge a lot and hope consumers will actually go for it.

 

Depending on where you shop, you can get DVDs anywhere from US$7.50

each all the way up to (and beyond) $24.99 each. Sets, of course,

cost more. You can purchase DVDs cheaper at places like Amazon.com

or DeepDiscountDVD.com (tho' the cost of shipping to Turkey may null

the price difference), and I've found good prices at places like

Walmart and Target. Sometimes it's just a matter of waiting out the

" popularity impulse purchase " time period (which varies for each

item) and getting them when something moves to the sale rack or a

third party distributor. Purchasing a US-made DVD outside of the US

may also include some amount of shipping cost (which I'm guessing is

why your Black Hawk Down [that's a great movie!] cost as much as it

did.

 

As for subtitles and language choices, that depends on the movie or

DVD production people -- generally I've seen that alternate languages

will at least include Spanish and French audio tracks (I did see a

couple that had both Mandarin and Cantonese as choices). Subtitles

language choices will vary, too. It's hard to tell; you'd pretty

much have to look at the back of the disk jacket for the info.

 

One thing you do need to be cautious of is that not all DVDs are

created alike -- that is, DVDs created in the US may or may not play

on a DVD player manufactured outside the US, and vice versa. My

parents travel a lot, and on one of their trips to China my dad

bought a DVD of some touristy thing... it wouldn't work in the DVD

player they already had at home. They ended up purchasing another

DVD player, a cheap one, that had been manufactured overseas. Sounds

like overkill, but for the $40 he spent, he's now he's able to play

all the DVDs he gets in China, Hong Kong, and Japan with no trouble

(they travel a LOT).

 

I hope this helps!

 

Karen

 

 

>Hey y'all,

>

>Gotta question on the above. I've not purchased a DVD in the USA before

>as I never had a DVD player .. but now I do. The English language DVDs

>we find here in Turkey (most all of them are English) have subtitles in

>many languages - Greek, Bulgarian, Spanish, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish,

>etc., but they are danged expensive .. we paid close to $35 for Black

>Hawk Down and I'm sure they are a lot cheaper in the USA.

>

>Is it common for DVDs sold in the US to have foreign language subtitles?

>Or are they available in the US with foreign subtitles? If so, what is

>the high-low range of cost of such DVDs in the US?

>

>I tried to do a search engine query on this today and got nowhere fast.

>

>Thankee y'all mucho .. keep smiling. :-) Butch

 

--

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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P.O. Box 1390 / La Canada, CA 91012-5390

<> <> <> <> <>

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[Guest guest]

Hey Chris,

 

> Hey Butch,

>

> You have to beware about having a European DVD player and then buying US

> DVD's - as they run on different formats and regional codes, so most US

> DVDs will not play in a European DVD player

 

Thanks .. as I told Karen my Sony plays'em all. Its a fancy mochine -

multi-voltage, multi-hrz, multi-region, multi-system. Costs a bit over

$250 and we can get regular DVD players here for as little as $30. Its

so danged fancy that I don't know how to operate it yet .. Tanya is

gonna teach me. The Instruction Booklet is written in forty-eleven

languages .. Russian being one of them .. but not in English. ;-)

 

> For more info on this:

> http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlaserdisc/a/aaregioncodesa.htm

 

Went there .. lots of information .. I knew nothing about this before

and I still don't. ;-)

 

> It stinks!

 

Again .. a part of our glorious Capitalist system. ;-)

 

> They do make " code free players " or another option is to have two

> players and set one up for the US DVDs and the other for the European

> DVDs. Considering that here in the US you can get DVD players starting

> at under $40 - that isn't too crazy an option if you own more than one

> TV ...

 

Good info I reckon .. but the new Sony systems are ahead of the above

URL .. I bought it because I would be able to use it in the USA .. same

goes for the new Sony flat screen I bought .. I had a rinky dink Hitachi

which I never watched .. I paid around $50 for it years ago here in

Ankara .. gave it to the maid. ;-)

 

> I wonder if it'll be the same when they switch over to the Blu-Ray and

> HD-DVD format (and eventually HVD).

 

I have no idea what they are .. but I wonder too. ;-)

 

> But I've digressed, to answer your original questions, some DVD's come

> with several subtitle language options, and they can range in price -

> starting from about $9 and going up from there ..

 

Danged good prices .. but I doubt if there are many in the USA with

subtitles in Russian. Until Tanya learns English (she's going to

classes for that now) we'll need that. We can even get Russian DVDs

with subtitles in English here .. and the Russian movies are mostly

American films.

 

> *Smile*

> Chris (list mom)

> http://www.alittleolfactory.com

 

Done and done .. and I thank you ma'am .. and all the other good folks

who wrote me on and off line .. appreciated is the information. I'm not

a lot smarter on this subject than I was to begin with but I'm also not

as confused. ;-)

 

And .. I might have a good part of the problem licked in any case. I

just learned today that I could get a dual satellite dish system with a

small control box about the size of a DVD player that gives me 400 +

channels .. to include all of Europe and Russia and some of the North

American channels. I went to a Vestal shop and bought it .. cheap it

was too .. $194 .. a one time payment .. no monthly fees, etc. Plus

they come tomorrow to install it as a part of that price .. that's hard

to beat methinks.

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch http://www.AV-AT.com