2020-04-07 04:41:32 (edited by Dark 2020-04-07 04:42:20)

Okay this is frustrating.
for my combined birthday and Christmas last year, my parents bought me game of thrones on dvd.

When I've watched with my brother, or indeed on tv, it's had audio description tracks available. Yet I look on VLC media player, and in the audio tracks there is no option.
There is a second English track, but that seems to be a director's commentary.
I tried messing about with the subtitle options when you stick a disk in, but couldn't find anything that works.

So either A, I have some how been really unlucky and not! got the game of thrones on dvd with the audio description, or B, it has audio description, but for some reason it's not appearing in VlC media player's audio menu.

I'm just checking to make sure there isn't another way of activating audio description that I haven't seen, since of course all the actual dvd menus including options are inaccessible.

If not, that will be a pain.

I do happen to have a basic mp3 audio track of the description, but trying to sinc that to start at the same time I start the episode on dvd so that I get both the pictures and the description is proving rather difficult, indeed part of the reason I got the series on dvd is that I can make the most out of watching what I can watch, and get the description to fill in the gaps.

If I've been sold a lemon description wise it's not terrible, it just means I'll be watching the series twice, first with the pictures, then with the audio description, but obviously I'd prefer to avoid having to do that if I can.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-04-07 07:01:13

It is likely that it has no AD when you bought it in DVD.

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2020-04-07 07:34:05 (edited by Dark 2020-04-07 07:34:55)

@Techguy, I know for a fact the dvd edition of Game of thrones does come with audio description, at least in Britain, since I first watched seasons 1-3 with my brother on dvd and all of his copies did.

It's possible this is a different edition I suppose, but that does seem rather odd, given that other occasions things I've seen with audio description, like doctor who and torchwood tend to always have it available on the dvd.

That's why I'm wondering if there is some alternative activation method I've missed other than looking in Vlc media player's audio tracks.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-04-07 08:26:46

Wow. I only thought Game of Throwns was available with audio description in the US.

Best regards SLJ.
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2020-04-07 11:32:29

hi.


There are other ways you could get this tv show but I can't mention them here.


SO instead I'll say this; you could try BeMyEyes and ask them to help you out with your mouse and clicking and all that, it'll probably be slow but it's doable.

I'm gone for real :)

2020-04-07 14:16:08

I know here in the states there is no audio description on the dvds that i have.

2020-04-07 16:16:26

I don't think any GOT release has AD. Just download them. Yes, illegally. That's what you get when they don't include the tracks on official releases.

2020-04-07 17:51:37

Bollemanneke, you clearly didn't read Dark's posts clearly enough, so let me summarize.

Audio description for Game of Thrones does exist. Dark says so, and having watched the first season I can corroborate.
Dark stated that he could get audio description and try to sync it, but it would be quite a headache.
Dark has a bit of usable vision, so just listening to an audio track is not the full experience for him.

Rather than suggesting that he download content via questionable means, how about reading more thoroughly in the future?

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2020-04-07 18:37:45

@Dark,
I am thinking you might have an adission that doesn't have audio description. The only other thing you could do is fine someone with enough vision to check the menus for you.

2020-04-07 18:46:02 (edited by bgt lover 2020-04-07 18:46:48)

I, for one, got audio description when opening it with aimp. Who knows, it may even work for you too.

2020-04-07 19:51:20

@swigjr23, I'm thinking you might be correct. It does occur to me this edition has quite a few language tracks so might be the international release rather than the UK one and thus not include description.
If I can get someone to check the menu's I'd check for certain, though I suspect if none of the language tracks include it it is not there.
@bgt lover, what is Aimp?

What I am having to do at the moment watch each episode visually, then listen to the mp3 track of the audio description afterwards, which is rather long winded and not ideal, but better than missing one or other element. Indeed, it's interesting things I pickup and things I don't, for example, the audio description of Aria's first sword lesson with Syrio Forel was slightly disappointing with the description, since you just don't pick up how he moves all the time, plus a lot of shearly atmospheric elements, such as the rather lovely sunset beach where Drogo first takes denaerys after their wedding just don't come across.

On the other hand, lots of the faster action or smaller gestures I simply missed, such as the point where Denaerys strokes Drogo's face when they make love, or the stray blond hair Kat finds in Winterfel which implicates the lanister's in Bran's attempted murder.

This is why I tend to like both together where possible.

My brother is apparently going to contact Amazon, since he bought me the dvd box set first off. If he gets somewhere and either exchanges the set or does something else fair enough, if not, I'll make do as is, though I will say I'm far less irritated about this than I would have been if I didn't happen to have the mp3 audio description tracks on hand.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-04-07 20:19:30

hi,
I'm just  taking a guess and I  have a reason for it.
@dark, try pressing b and see if that works.
I've  played some of those dvd's  in my computer which had the same movie availabel  in 2 languages,   to   switch over, the "b" key was working for me.

allow me to speak more,
catch me on Twitter
or, Mastodon

2020-04-07 20:52:55 (edited by Dark 2020-04-07 20:55:41)

@pool, thanks for the suggestion, I dint' know about that hotkey, however that just seems to cycle the existing language tracks already available in the audio tracks menu, all of which I'd already tried.

It actually does seem this is the edition available without description, which is a pest, whether it will be exchangeable for the UK release I'm not sure.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-04-08 06:56:09

@11: aimp is a russian audio player with a staggering amount of features, something like audacity, but it can do radio streams, streamming from youtube and such tricky little things you need sometimes too.
you can find more information about it on the all knowing wikypedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIMP
anyway, in my opinion, you really bought the wrong edition. Here in Romania, for example, we don't even have audio description, it seems to be abit new for us lol. My mistake was that I bought something which contained romanian subtitles, don't exactly remember why, I think they gave me that because their store is in romania, I live there and whatever. The thing is that I haven't got AD, so I went back to the store and was refounded because, I think, not a day has passed since I bought it.
Anyway, I bought the U.K version from amazon afterwards and, though I lost the subtitles useful for my other sighted romanian friends, I gained AD, so I am happy in the end.

2020-04-08 12:53:32 (edited by Sightless Kombat 2020-04-08 12:58:13)

@1
As far as I know, GOT has never had audio description on the DVDs, same as Torchwood (believe me, I've looked for both of those with AD and have never found any DVD version with it available).  If you do find further information that indicates there an edition of both available with AD though, please do leave links here for anyone who might want to find them later.

I'm not saying the DVDs you saw previously didn't in fact have AD, but whenever I've tried to look for these myself I've never been able to find AD on any of them (it's usually referenced on the packaging as "English Audio Description" as you're likely very much aware).

Hope you get your issues resolved asap though, best of luck.

Regards,
Sightless Kombat.
***If you wish to refer to me in @replies, use Sightless***

2020-04-10 09:30:39 (edited by Dark 2020-04-10 09:32:56)

@Sightless combat, I am absolutely %100 certain that my brother's edition has audio description, indeed the very English Audio description tracks which I found as mp3 files are the ones I previously  heard, whilst watching the series on Dvd with him in 2014. So, obviously some dvd editions do have it, though how to find out which does and which doesn't I have no idea. Of course there is the option to just buy through Amazon prime, but for a series I'm likely to rewatch like game of thrones, and one that comes in a big uba presentation case what's more, doing it that way would be a shame, especially when my parents already paid quite a bit of money for the dvds as a Christmas present.

Unfortunately, Amazon know nothing about whether editions have audio description or not, and I can't get in touch with HBO or any subsidiary company to actually find out.

So, my option seems to pretty much be either get a refund and buy on amazon prime (which would also work out more expensive, which is quite ridiculous for digital purchases), or just do what I'm doing, and I'm inclined to follow the second option, for all that is a mildly annoying way around.

On the plus side, since I had to listen through to the audio description track anyway, I did manage to sucker Mrs. Dark into hearing it with me, which was sort of amusing given her intensive love/hate relationship with Martin's writing, and the fact that she actually liked the series.

Btw, as regards torchwood, torchwood season 1 does not appear to have audio description, but the rest of it should , including miracle day, indeed like the Doctor who dvds, the audio description even activates automatically as I remember, since when I was watching through torchwood I was using power Dvd rather than Vlc, which didn't have a way to view language tracks.

Again, if you don't find it, this might be another edition problem, which does seem a bit odd coming from a bbc series.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)