On Tue, 1 May 2001 12:17:53 -0700, "Scott Clauss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On this subject; anyone with a DVD player may be able to choose subtitles or >foreign language and find out what is written or said. I have a DVD built >into my computer, but I don't have any movies rented right now. > >Just an idea, >Scott C I can't remember if I posted messages on this list re my experiences with DVD subtitles, so apologies if I'm repeating myself. I borrowed a DVD called Taxi, a French comedy. It was a version for the English-language market, and the subtitles were not optional. I was irritated by a car chase where one character complained about exceeding the speed limit; the subtitles said "you're doing over 30" - the shot then showed a speed limit sign showing "50"! I recently watched the French films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. The subtitles could be switched off, but English was the only option. They were a mixture of litres, cubic metres, inches (incorrectly converted, as I could translate the dialogue!) and gallons. I found the subtitling company (based in London) on the Web, and this was their response: > Dear Mr Keenan, > > Thank you for taking the trouble to write to us re metric >conversions. I can well understand your irritation at seeing metric >converted to imperial, especially with the inconsistent and wrongly >converted 2km! However, you will be glad to know that we are already aware >of this issue and have taken steps to avoid it happening again, and that, >although we convert imperial to metric when we translate from English to >other languages, you are right to point out that there is no real need to >convert metric to imperial when the target language is English. > > Thank you again for writing to us. > > Yours sincerely > > Diane Buck > Subtitle Editor -- Chris KEENAN UK Metrication Association: http://www.metric.org.uk/ UK Correspondent, US Metric Association
