Subtitles enabled only through DVD movie menu? (1 Viewer)

[TonyTone]

I had started watching The Scorpion King and had decided a few minutes into the movie that I wanted to turn on English subtitles. So...I took out my trusty Toshiba DVD remote (DVD player is a SD-1600, BTW), pressed the "Subtitle" button, then started to press the up/down arrow keys so I can select "English". However, upon doing so I got the "circle/slash" symbol on my screen, meaning of course that such a selection was not possible while the movie was playing; note--pressing the left/right arrow keys produced the same result. As a result, I had to stop the movie (hitting "menu" key) and go into the DVD menu in order to turn on English subtitles. I think I had at least one other movie in my collection (can't remember the title at the moment) that did the same thing.

Just curious as to if there are other movies where the only way you can turn on subtitles is through the DVD menu...or is my DVD player just too lame for certain (newer?) DVD movies?

 

[MichaelAW]

I've noticed this a few times, most recently (last night) with MGM's The Living Daylights. It doesn't have English subtitles (just Spanish and French), but they can't be accessed during the film.
I know there are others, but having watched TLD last night, I remember that one.

 

[Mark_vdH]

It's not your player....it's just encoded like that.

I'm not sure, but doesn't Snow White also have this 'problem'?

 

[cafink]

I'm not familiar with any of the DVDs mentioned in this thread, but I know that a lot of Special Edition DVDs include lots of supplemental material that can be accessed while watching the film itself. Often, the subtitle screen will be used for special features like video commentary, special icons, and other such things.

If this is indeed the case, it makes sense to lock the subtitle button so that the user doesn't inadvertently cause strange icons and whatnot to appear and generally mess with the program.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Any navigation feature may be locked out in authoring.

 

[rbirk]

I noticed this on a few movies lately. It is very annoying and I cannot understand why a studio would want it that way.

Ron Birk

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The Living Daylights uses soft subtitles for the foreign languages, so it locks them

 

[Mark Zimmer]

The Razor's Edge from Columbia also locks out subs for some unknown reason.

 

[Mark_vdH]

Just watched The Fog and it has this feature too.......