Comments by "Laurence Fraser" (@laurencefraser) on "This TV gadget censors bad words with 1980's tech" video.

  1. What's really fun is watching dvds translated from Japanese with the audio and subtitles both set to English. The issue is that the primary target for people who wanted to read the subtitles wasn't people who couldn't hear the English audio, it was people who would watch the thing with the Japanese audio on with English subtitles (there's a whole history here that basically amounts to the publishers of English versions of things being stupid, and large portions of the fan base also being stupid, on top of the more obvious and reasonable causes that one might expect). Consequently, the audio and subtitles would be (well, will be. This still happens, to my understanding) Independently translated from the Japanese, often by entirely different translation companies, with no attempt what so ever being made to reconcile the two beyond the natural consequence of lining up the timing with what was happening on screen. Which means that if you want to watch with English audio* but need subtitles, the results are kind of wild. *such as, say, when watching almost any anime with highschool girls in it. The Japanese audio frequently ends up being physically painful if you have certain sensory issues.
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