jkester

do these kurosawa masterworks sets have english subs?



http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/...617374-8773000

RichardW

Unfortunately, no. The only Japanese Kurosawa DVD with English subtitles is Dreams, which is coming out here next month anyway.

jkester

darn! thanks for the quick response. although the steep price on them was a bit prohibitive anyway :/

snowchasse

Thankfully, there is a group of Kurosawa fans creating subtitle scripts for all three box sets. It's organized by fugueness over at the asiandvdguide.com forums. All you'll need is a computer DVD-ROM to subtitle the DVDs "on the fly." I just put in my order for all 3 at amazon.co.jp, and it cost *gulp* me nearly a grand! Definitely worth it IMO, as side by side comparisons with their Criterion counterparts show a vastly superior source (which makes sense, since Toho always keeps the best prints for themselves).

cultshock

Damn Toho, so worried about Japanese consumers importing R1 DVDs. Thus we get inferior transfers for Kurosawa films, or in the case of Godzilla films, dubbed only, or non existant releases.

hardtack

Yes, those horrible people at Toho - I mean all Region 1 DVDs carry Japanese subtitles don't they.

Prancetron2000

I think he's talking about R1 Japanese movies.

cultshock

Yes, I was talking about R1 Japanese films (ie Godzilla) NOT having their original Japanese soundtracks on them, or having inferior prints, so that people in Japan will be less likely to import the usually cheaper R1 discs. If a Japanese consumer could get a R1 disc of a Japanese film with original language soundtrack and removable English subtitles for about 20.00, why would he purchase the R2 version for double the price or more, if the quality is comparable (keeping in mind that multiregion players are much more commonly found for sale outside the US).

jkester

so these subtitle scripts dont physically add subtitles to the dvd, right? i.e. you will only get to see the subtitles when you play the dvd on your computer, right?

cultshock

I've never used it, but yes, I think that is how it works. Although it would be cool if one could actually record such a subtitle track onto their DVD. Maybe in the future?

jkester

yeah. that made no sense to me unless they were rewritable which they obviously aren't. still might be a good idea

snowchasse

Yeah you run it off your PC. Load up DVDSUBBER (www.dvdsubber.com), load the script, and the DVD is subtitled. The trick is finding a way to output the video to a TV or projector. The easiest way is getting a video card that has S-Video out.
For sound, you'll need something like the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz for digital output (coax). Your regular soundcard should do if you're not an audiophile.