Howl's Moving Castle DVD glitch?

[silverwings]

Just bought the DVD the other day and it's acting strangely.

Whenever a sign or title comes up (like the title screeen, or the Hatter's sign, for example), the dvd will sub the sign (like the title screen will say "Howl's Moving Castle" and the dvd will sub it "Howl's Moving Castle").

I don't know why it does that or how to turn it off. It's doing it with the subtitle option off as well.

Is it a glitch or a stupid move by Disney?

[Daizaburo Estes]

That would be a glitch, friend. I've never had that problem, myself, and I haven't heard of any other occurences so... Sorry. :/

[SpaceCowboy]

I have the DVD too and I found it annoying at first as well. It can be easily turned off while the movie is playing if your player lets you switch subtitle tracks on the fly.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

You probably have a separate, non-dialogue subtitle track on for the unaltered angle of the movie, where the signs and text are left in Japanese, but you have that subtitle track on while you're watching the angle for the dub version instead.

There can be a lot of screwups when DVDs have different angles to juggle, though.

If you don't know what "angle" means-- some DVDs have two different versions of a sequence, and in these Disney dubs, Japanese signs and text are digitally altered for these dub versions. But most (if not all) of the Ghibli DVDs usually still include the UN-digitally altered version as well, which you can switch to with the "angle" button on your remote. That is, if your DVD player offers this feature.

You probably thought you turned off the subtitle track when instead you switched it to non-dialogue subtitles instead of flat out ZERO subtitles.

[MeggieMay]

That doesn't sound like a glitch to me. It sounds like they subbed the signs for those who want to know what they read. A lot of people like to know what signs say (such as myself) and Disney isn't the only company I've seen subtitle signs like that (I've had some Bandai titles do it and a few Funimation (though I think Funi usually has done it via the "Angle" function in the past more than the "Subtitle" one, at least on the DVD's I've had)).

That said, the option can usually be turned off. I've not gotten to see my copy of Howl's yet (I've not even gotten it opened up), so I don't know what the options are for subtitles on the disk. However, as SpaceCowboy pointed out you should be able to turn it off from the remote control (which I think is what they meant by "on the fly"). If you push the "subtitle" button it should toggle around through all the subtitle options, even if they aren't included as the accessable subtitles from the disk menus.

If you don't have a remote you may have a problem.* As for computer DVD players - I don't know a lot about them but I would think you can do turn things off and on with them about as easily as with a remote, though someone else will have to help you with just how that might work.

*Remotes are your friend, at least when it comes to DVD players :anime: I have a portable Poloroid brand DVD that I bought at Wal-Mart didn't come with a remote. It took about two weeks for me to get sick of the subtitles messing up and not being able to change things with a remote (you could change the sub settings from the set up menu but it awkward to do, plus the subshad a bad habit of switching on, or to the wrong sub, when I didn't want them to) that I actually looked up Poloroids site and bought a remote. Best $30 I've spent in a few years - not only did it fix the subtitle stuff but it allowed me into a ton of options that the DVD's manual didn't even mention were available .

[MeggieMay]

You probably have a separate, non-dialogue subtitle track on for the unaltered angle of the movie, where the signs and text are left in Japanese, but you have that subtitle track on while you're watching the angle for the dub version instead.

There can be a lot of screwups when DVDs have different angles to juggle, though.

If you don't know what "angle" means-- some DVDs have two different versions of a sequence, and in these Disney dubs, Japanese signs and text are digitally altered for these dub versions. But most (if not all) of the Ghibli DVDs usually still include the UN-digitally altered version as well, which you can switch to with the "angle" button on your remote. That is, if your DVD player offers this feature.

You probably thought you turned off the subtitle track when instead you switched it to non-dialogue subtitles instead of flat out ZERO subtitles.

The thing about Angle is that most DVD players have a Angle Icon that shows if a movie/TV show has a Angle options (it usually shows up in the top right or left corner of the screen) and that option is usually on by the default. So unless the silverwings turned off the Angle Icon, or didn't know it was there and missed seeing it, they should have noticed that issue.

Personally, I have to pay attention and make sure I have the Angle Icon turned on in the Set Up menu because I have habit of turning it off. There's just so much of those icons I can take when watching disks like The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and Funimation shows before it drives me nutty [but at least I can turn it off! My boyfriend had a DVD player that had the icon turned on and no way to turn it off that he could ever find ]

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

The thing about Angle is that most DVD players have a Angle Icon that shows if a movie/TV show has a Angle options (it usually shows up in the top right or left corner of the screen) and that option is usually on by the default. So unless the silverwings turned off the Angle Icon, or didn't know it was there and missed seeing it, they should have noticed that issue.

Personally, I have to pay attention and make sure I have the Angle Icon turned on in the Set Up menu because I have habit of turning it off. There's just so much of those icons I can take when watching disks like The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and Funimation shows before it drives me nutty [but at least I can turn it off! My boyfriend had a DVD player that had the icon turned on and no way to turn it off that he could ever find ]

Most people never ever use the angle option--I've never seen it needed in anything other than anime DVDs and insane special editions like LOTR DVDs. And I think the icon is off by default, because when I first used it, I never saw anything on the screen. And both DVD players I've ever owned never told me anything onscreen either when watching movies with multiple angles.

At any rate, I think the poster's problem is that he's watching the digitally altered angle while playing the non-dialogue subtitles for the unaltered angle.

[silverwings]

Yeah, thanks for the help. I had to start the movie and toggle through the subtitles to get the fully "off" version. This worked on my computer, so hopefully it will work for the DVD player.

As for angles, I didn't know Disney had the english altered and the japanese original sign text in different angles. Neat. Have to try that sometime. :anime:

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Yeah, thanks for the help. I had to start the movie and toggle through the subtitles to get the fully "off" version. This worked on my computer, so hopefully it will work for the DVD player.

As for angles, I didn't know Disney had the english altered and the japanese original sign text in different angles. Neat. Have to try that sometime. :anime:

For what it's worth, I had the same problem on my DVD player when I was watching the movie. I just chalked it up to my codeless DVD player, which does some odd things occasionally. The most annoying one was for an English/Spanish movie (maybe Once Upon a Time in Mexico), where any subtitled Spanish dialogue would turn on all subtitles from that point forward. Eventually, we gave up and just watched the rest of the movie subtitled.

I'll have to try that "angle" trick to see if the signs change. If so, then Disney/BVHE doesn't seem to be very consistent in their releases. We watched Howl's in both English and Japanese, and the credits changed but the signs were all still in English with the superfluous subtitles. On the other hand, My Neighbor Totoro seems to have all its signs and text in Japanese no matter which language you're watching in.

-- Ed/Ace

[Lord Dalek]

This happened to me the first time I played my copy. Hasn't happened since.

Gotta ask yourself what was the point of that since all the signs in the film are in English or German.