Reviving an old VCD dub with Python

jsutton.co.uk

42 points·edent··9 comments

As much as I realize why Netflix only offers subtitles in the language for the region for the client IP, it's a terrible shame. Subtitled films are a great language learning tool, and this (as pointed out in TFA) slams that door shut.

Once again, piracy is a way better option.

Netflix also seems to take into account the language your profile is set to as well, so you may get more/different subtitle choices if you change your profile language. See https://help.netflix.com/en/node/101798

Pretty neat article. Makes me feel a bit silly about how I'd probably do it by hand in Audacity though.

Interesting. But using VPN or outright pirating it would be probably usually better choice.

Especially since from what I understand, VCDs are pirate material anyway.

Somewhere in storage I have a perfectly legitimate VCD release of one of the original Star Trek movies. It's split across two discs!

The comparison with Laserdisc always amused me. Laserdiscs usually have to be turned over half way through, VCDs only play on one side, so you have to swap it out for a completely separate disc in the middle of the movie.

I think for lots of western content ~10-15 years ago this was the case. Sites like vcdquality.com were around to track pirated Oscar screener rips, and folks would rip those to VCD format since back then bandwidth was more scarce and you could watch these moves on normal ~700MB CD-ROMs.

Lots of VCDs were legitimate releases from the production studios - certain markets made VHS, dvd, BluRay untenable.

Thanks for the write up! I'll have to try this with my Totoro rips. The blu-ray version has the 2004 English dub, but I prefer the 1993 dub from (one of the) DVDs.

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