Help Me Play My First VCD - Stange Sound Issue

[Clueless Newbie]

Hiya Folks. I've got a problem with a VCD, and I'm throwing myself upon your mercy. Please bear with me while I explain.

I'm a big fan of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Now, one of its stars, Michelle Yeoh has this new film out called 'The Touch.' Unfortunatley I'm a Brit and this movie is only out in Asia.

However, it is out on VCD in Asia. So a kind friend bought me a present - 'The Touch' on VCD.

Hooray! So I open up the VCD. I stick it in my DVD drive. I load powed DVD. It starts! It works! I'm watching 'The Touch' - a movie I've wanted to see for ages and that won't make it to the UK for months!

BUT there's a problem. When someone opens their mouth to speak, two sound channels seem to come out. All the people in the movie talk in Mandarin and English. At the same time.

This doesn't do a lot for my enjoyment of the movie.

Now, I've tried playing with Power DVD and Win media player 9 (whatever the beta with the Corona skin thingy is). Power DVD plays both chinese and English at the same time right from pressing play. If there;s an option to turn off one of the sound channels, I;m not seeing it.

On the disc there are the following directories: CDI, EXT, MPEGAV, SEGMENT and VCD.

When I play with Media Player, I go to the MPEGAV folder and tell it to play the AVSEQ03.DAT file, 1 and 2 being an advert for a mobile phone and an intro respectivley.

The VCD was sealed when I got it. It;s got Han Entertainment copyright stickers on it. It's got a box on the back of it in purple that says 'Languages: Mandarin & English'

Am I dealing with a dodgy VCD, am I being increadabley stupid, or do I have to watch a movie I've wanted to see for months and months in Mandarin & English at the same time?

Please help this idiotic newbie.

Many thanks.

[Tommyknocker]

What happens when you press the Next audio stream button while it is playing?

[DigiToast]

Hi, I'm not sure about how to select audio channels with the two programs you're using, but in media player 6.x .. the only one i will use =D, you can right click in the video box, go to properties, advanced, mpeg audio decoder, and then choose what channel you want to hear. You can try and see if media player 9 will let you do this, and if not, then just hit start|run, type in mplayer2 and it'll pull up the version 6 player.

[snowmoon]

VCD's don't nativly support multiple audio tracks so often the big VCD producers will make the left one mon-audio channel and the right one mono-audio channel.

It's just due to the limitation of the format. Most good VCD player will allow you to select one channel. Alternatly I think you can adjust your speaker balance to just have either L or R come through.

[Clueless Newbie]

^ That was indeed the case - thank you. Left one was the English Track, and Power DVD let me switch.

Thank you good sirs. You can be pleased with yourselves for helping a clueless idiot watch a film she;s wanted to see for ages this evening.