Purchased DVD Audio Problem

[Novice20]

I purchased a DVD set of a TV series that was broadcast in 2015. The site appeared to be legitimate. I added the DVD to the shopping cart, they charged my CC and then confirmed that the order was being processed. When I received the DVD set, I saw that there were Chinese characters on the disks, as well as on the individual disk's menus. I played the first disk - there weren't any Chinese sub-titles - and the video part played perfectly. There was background music in the opening scene and that was fine as well. However, once it got to dialogue, it could not be heard. Background music continued to play. If one listened very carefully, one could hear, beneath the background music, a very, very low almost inaudible dialogue. I went back and looked at the package and saw that it had been mailed from China.

Is this problem happening because these DVDs were made for the Chinese market and won't play on American players? Or is it because this is a "knockoff" DVD - there is only one other website offering the DVD set- and therefore is poorly produced? Or is there some setting I can tweak - I'm using VLC player - to try to make this work?

I have contacted the seller and am waiting for a reply. I have contacted the cc bank and they are ready to accept my disputing the charge if I choose to do so.

Thank you

[october262]

Does the dvd set have more than one language/audio track ??

[Novice20]

No it doesn't. There isn't any selection for audio on the main menu screen. VLC menu bar dropdown shows Audio--> Track 1 [English] but no other audio tracks.

[teodz1984]

It's a knock off
You've been duped

[Novice20]

Thank you for your comments. I'm closing this thread.

[roma_turok]

But what type audio track it is?
2 channels stereo AC3/pcm?
or 5 channels DTS/AC3?
you can check by drag and drop biggest VOB to MediaInfo:

[davejavu]

It may be a 'knock off', it may be an unintended fault with the disks or it could be multi-channel audio with VLC messing them up or downmixing them to stereo improperly. Have you tried a different media player, such as MPC-HC, to see if the problem exists there as well?

[Novice20]

The merchant responded to my email and said a replacement DVD set would be sent to me. I'm sure it would be interesting to follow your helpful, and welcome, suggestions to try to debug this but after the merchant's response about the replacement it's really not worth the effort.

Thank you again for your interest and your help.

[jagabo]

The merchant responded to my email and said a replacement DVD set would be sent to me. I'm sure it would be interesting to follow your helpful, and welcome, suggestions to try to debug this but after the merchant's response about the replacement it's really not worth the effort.

The replacement is almost certainly going to have the same problem. You'll still need to figure out what the issue is.

[Novice20]

Received replacement DVD set and they play fine. Thank you everyone for your assistance and advice.

[manono]

I was thinking the same as jagabo. Almost certainly the original one was a bootleg. Was the second one also with the Chinese text on the cover? Identical in every respect except this time you got the audio you expected?

My guess is the answer is 'yes' to both questions. This one would also still be a bootleg, but just a better quality one.

[Novice20]

You are correct, manono. The second one is identical to the first one, sent from China with Chinese lettering on the box and in the DVD's menu screen as well. Though I would have thought that a bootleg DVD wouldn't be openly advertised on Internet and locatable via google search. I subsequently found a second website that is also openly advertising what appears to be this same "bootleg"(?) DVD set.

[manono]

Bootlegs are advertised all over the place. EBay is full of them. I'd guess 90% of the DVDs offered out of China of US films or television series are boots. Maybe more. What might have raised alarm bells - if you knew more about the subject - is that there wasn't an official release of the series from the production company. Lots of times people knowingly go for bootlegs just because they're so cheap as compared to official releases. In your case, it's almost a guarantee that if the only DVD release of the series is out of China, then it's not official or authorized by the copyright holders. Trying to shut these guys down is like playing Whack-A-Mole. You close one and up pops another.

[Novice20]

When I bought the first set I did not know that it was coming from China until it arrived and I saw the return address. I would have gladly bought an "authorized" set at a higher price (had I known this was bootleg) had there been one available. But this first season of the series was broadcast over two years ago and there still isn't any other offering of it. So it appears that there won't be an "authorized" version coming out.