Thursday, November 12, 2009

What Are They Saying?

**Edited to add::

I went ahead and watched my copy of the dvd movie UP and it IS captioned AND has English subtitles!! It has no [CC] symbols on the back and no subtitles info, but it IS captioned!! I have heard from various people that the rental versions aren't captioned, dunno what the deal with that is. So my apologies, the plain dvd version of UP is ok for us Deaf people to watch!! Yay!!


***
A friend on Facebook posted that the UP dvd movie did not have captions or subtitles. My heart skipped a beat as I ran to go check my copy and sure enough-- no captions or subtitles. There is French and Spanish subtitles, but not English. I went online to the Disney website and did some searching and I found they released 3 versions of the UP movie-- Blu-Ray, Digital, and regular DVD. ONLY the Blu-Ray version has English subtitles for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing viewers.

Why??? First, the Blu-Ray version costs more, and you need the Blu-Ray player. Secondly, why would Disney choose to leave out the captions or subtitles on any version of their movies?? I like watching movies, too! My kids could still watch it, but I won't be able to understand anything. Have you ever tried to lip-read a cartoon??? I'm a good lip-reader, but not that good!

I'm upset about it. I already opened the movie to clip out the proof-of-purchase tabs to redeem a rebate on the movie. I don't know if I'll be able to return it. I did get it for free after the coupons, but it's the principal of the thing-- had I known there were no captions or subtitles on it, I wouldn't have bought it. I hardly ever check for captions or subtitles anymore.. almost all the popular movies released on dvd have captions or subtitles.. it's usually the older copies or lesser-known movies that are hit-or-miss with captions.

I'm going to try and take back the movie, but I think the chances will be slim that they refund my $10 CVS bucks.

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5 comments:

codeman38 said...

Actually, it's even weirder. Both *retail* DVD versions have English subs (it's not clearly marked on the DVD case, but they're there-- it's what the "SDH" icon means); however, the *rental* version completely lacks subtitles.

Carol said...

I think that is absolutely appalling and I'm not surprised your upset about it!!!

I think you should start up a petition (I'd sign it)....strength in numbers!!

C x

anme said...

gah, that's irritating, wasn't there just a concluded class action suit over this very issue?!

codeman38 said...

I looked up the lawyer who filed the class action suit over the captioning of bonus features and e-mailed him about this-- curious to see what he thinks.

And I've confirmed that the store-bought version of the DVD is subtitled in English, so your copy from CVS should be OK. It's only rental copies (Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster, etc.) that have no subtitles.

jenny said...

Thanks for all your comments.. As I edited my post to say, the regular dvd version of the movie IS captioned and english subtitled. I should have watched it before I said anything, but my dvd player was not working and I just bought a new dvd player today to check it. My apologies!! :o)

I'll go and put my foot back in my mouth now.