The Hours - Why French? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Burkes]

Hey, everyone! I bought The Hours on Tuesday and watched it last night. It's an absolutely gorgeous film, but I noticed when I popped the disc in that the pre-movie warnings were in French. "Odd," I thought. Then the film started out with French as the default language. Does everyone's copy do this? I don't want to have to go into the menus and change the language, if I can exchange for a copy that doesn't do this. Thanks for any help!

Rob

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Check your player setup menu to make sure your default language is English. Also check and see if it's a Canadian copy

 

[Robert Burkes]

Jeff,

My player's audio menu is set to "original," and everything else is set to English. The case to the disc says, "Licensed for sale only in U.S." I'll try switching the audio menu to English, but I still don't understand why the warnings would be in French. Also, when I select the English language track, a French subtitle comes on below the title of the movie during the opening credits. Strange, no? Thanks for your help.

Rob

 

[Jeff Kleist]

What kind of player do you have? I don't think there is a flag for "original", so I don't know what that means. Try forcing both Audio and subs to english

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Pre-movie warnings will typically be in French and English and maybe Spanish. Was it just French on yours?

 

[Dmitry]

Dan, Robert also says that the movie started in French (I assume audio was in French), so it doesn't look like he just missed the English portion of the warnings.

 

[Robert Burkes]

Well, after changing the audio menu to English in the DVD player's setup menu, the movie still starts out in French. Also, the warnings only appear in French. I suppose I should exchange the disc, if you all aren't experiencing the same things. Do you all have this disc? Thanks for all your help.

Rob

 

[Rob Willey]

The warnings and default language on mine were English.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the English soundtrack is in 5.0 and the French is in 5.1. Maybe your player seeks out the 5.1 soundtrack and goes from there.

Rob

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Is the menu in French or English? It sounds like a defective or possibly Quebeci disc to me. Also, try it in another player.

 

[Joel Vardy]

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the English soundtrack is in 5.0 and the French is in 5.1. Maybe your player seeks out the 5.1 soundtrack and goes from there.

I believe you have caught on to something. This same thing happened on my Sony NC655P that I believe seeks out the highest available soundtrack, which in this case is French. Curious that the English soundtrack was reduced to 5.0. Any thoughts?

Joel

 

[Robert Burkes]

That may be it! I'll check later this afternoon. My player is a Sony, and it's set to pick the track with the most channels. Thanks, guys!

Joel, does your disc have French warnings?

Thanks, again, eveyone!

Rob

 

[Joel Vardy]

Joel, does your disc have French warnings?

Yes, it does. I certainly thought that was odd .

Joel

 

[Paul Anthony]

I also get the french warning, as well as the french subtitles while viewing the extras. My player is also a Sony.

 

[Martin Fontaine]

Same problem here! Damn the PQ! Dubbing a movie should have been made illegal years ago... But I suppose the reason dubbed versions are still legal is the same as to why cigarettes are still legal...

About the player picking up the 5.1 track by default would explain, so the PQ is off the hook on that one, good thing I ALWAYS go in the language menu and make sure I pick the correct one. Even if my player is set to choose the original by defaults, I still have problems with Iron Monkey and Spirited Away choosing the English Track as the default.

Now why would the wrong version have more track. Well, while The Hours is not an action/bassy movie, not having an LFE track is perfectly valid so I would suppose the frog track's LFE channel is empty... Being that this is the first Paramount movie with a french 5.1 track they did this to shut the mouths of Quebecers who still take dubs for granted and have called studios all sorts of nasty names for putting french tracks in 2.0...

Kinda like the Quebecian releases of french movies Asterix And Obelix 2 and Yamakasi. Both have a 5.1 track and a 2.0 track but the 2.0 track is encoded as a 5.1 track on the disk with only the front 2 emmiting sound.

But there is certainly no excuse in showing the warning in french. What's up with that?!?!?!?

Makes me ashamed of living in Quebec...

 

[MichaelPe]

Martin's Quebec-bashing posts always give me a good laugh...

Though, I have the U.S. version of "The Hours" (identical to the Canadian disc) and the same thing happened to me with the film starting with the French track by default - I have a Sony player too.

(And yes, I imported the US Version because I didn't want "Les Heures" written anywhere on the cover.)

 

[Martin Fontaine]

It's been confirmed that this is a bug due to the french track being in 5.1 (With the LFE track being most likely empty) makes a Sony DVD Player configured in "Auto Track Selection" to choose it over the english one. The more channels gets priority over the langauge (Set to "Original" on mine) when selecting the track.

That the US version has the same problem confirms that this is a bug, and not any conspiracy theory.

While the Cdn$ is doing good nowadays, importing US disks would not be a problem for me, I just like to pick up DVDs at a B&M...