DVD trouble

iviv · 28 Oct 2007 at 15:19

Right, I just bought an anime box set of DVDs and have tried to play them.
Loaded the first one, set it to japanese with subs, and tried to watch the first episode. However, slowly the subs are going out of time with the audio/video. Tried the second DVD, and had the same problem.
Third is fine, though.

Now, I bought them off a well known respectable online retailer, so they are the real thing, but I'm suprised they would have let something like this slip them by. I've tried in 2 different laptops and the problem is in both.
So, could it be a duff set of DVDs?

Tomsk · 28 Oct 2007 at 16:26

It could be that the DVD's are NTSC standard with 29.97Hz frame rate and your laptops are playing it by dropping every sixth frame to get 25Hz PAL standard. If the subtitles are tied to frame counts then they would go out of sync.

You need to try them on DVD player that DOESN'T convert NTSC to PAL and on a TV that displays NTSC.

iviv · 28 Oct 2007 at 17:19

They are Region 2 DVDs, so shouldn't they have done that automatically? >_>

Are there any programs out that would let you choose to play it as NTSC or PAL?

iviv · 28 Oct 2007 at 18:39

Alternatively, the real answer could be much more boring. Found a review for the first volume dvd:

My second problem is with the optional English subtitles. For the first ten minutes of episode one they are horribly out if sync and there is nothing more annoying than this (except for shoddy authoring). Thankfully they improve later on but on occasion they do come back to haunt for a second or two. Both discs in the set exhibit the exact same problems, which leads me to believe that this may be a problem on all retail copies.

If Manga are willing to send out a replacement copy, should it just be my disc that is faulty then I will be more than happy to retract my statement. Otherwise let it be noted that this is unacceptable for a series that should otherwise look stunning and as such it looses serious marks.

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=55864

Oh snap. Not much I can do about this then, is there?