Forcing DVDs to skip the garbage... (1 Viewer)

[Michael Reuben]

Only if you can name the titles and others can verify your experience (to eliminate the equipment variable).

M.

 

[MarkHastings]

I know I've come across titles that disabled the stop button, but as Garret and Doug mentioned, I may be thinking of an Adult title so I can't say that I know of a Hollywood title like that.

 

[Matt Rexer]

MarkHastings: Specially modified Sonys? I guess my question about these would be: can they output NTSC, and are they any good?

[wishes there were a mod chip for this type of thing]

 

[george kaplan]

Can anyone skip through or stop the intro that pops up when you stick in certain Paramount Star Trek titles (e.g., The Next Generation discs)? I'd be suprised if this is a player issue, but maybe so.

 

[DaveGTP]

Sometimes I don't have the remote in my hand yet, and I get it too late for this. Then you have to FF manually. Now my CP72 has multi-speed FF, but it's still annoying. I used a PS2 for a couple of years as a DVD player, and I feel for those poor folks holding down the shoulder button on the PS2 to FF through the trailers.


Honestly, my biggest annoyance is on ADVfilm's anime disks. It starts up to this annoyingly loud "WHAT IS ANIME? ANIME IS..." commercial. The db on the commercial is much louder than normal. For god's sake, I'm watching anime, I don't need to be told what it is.
Sometimes I'm tempted to burn a copy of the DVD just to strip the audio from the promo segment, so it doesn't deafen me when it starts blasting out my speakers.

 

[Ted Todorov]

From what I know: yes they output NTSC (from NTSC DVDs) and yes they are good. They don't do PAL to NTSC conversion however. My info may be two years old though (and is second hand -- though I trust the HTfer in question completely), and the DVD world does not stand still.

Ted

 

[ElevSkyMovie]

You can always burn a copy for yourself, leaving those items off the disc. Of course, if you have a 1000 dvds, that would be a lot work.

 

[Doug Otte]

Jeff, maybe my entire post wasn't clear. My main point is: if you have a decent quality player, you CAN skip the trailers. I think only the cheap machines are limited in this way. The only exception I've found is the one adult disc, and I'm not worried about that one.

Cheers,
Doug

 

[dpippel]

Not necessarily. It has nothing to do with the quality of the player. My Denon 5900 won't SKIP the forced trailers on Universal discs, only FF through them. I think most will agree that this machine is no slouch .

Is anyone in this thread actually DEFENDING the inclusion of forced trailers on DVD? I certainly hope not.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I haven't seen a single post in this thread that says so. Some of us just don't think that they're either (a) a new thing, or (b) a big deal.

M.

 

[MarkHastings]

The best defense I can give for finding a forced trailer (or FBI warning) to be annoying is because I have a DVD-RAM player. Since the cable goes through it, you get to watch tv as you get ready to put the disc in the player. What seems to always happen is, I'll put the disc in and the machine takes about 15-20 seconds to start it up, so while it's doing that, I'm usually watching what's on tv. I always keep my DVD player set to Comedy Central and SNL or MadTV is usually on. When the DVD finally kicks in and goes to the FBI warning, it seems like that's when the tv station goes into a skit I love.

So I'll start watching the skit and getting into it when the DVD player finally reads the disc and goes into it's FBI warning. I find a lot of times I'm immediately trying to hit the stop button so that I can go back to the tv station and finish watching the skit, but I can't because the disc won't allow me When it finally gets to the point where I can stop the DVD, the skit is over. :frowning:

That's the only time it really bugs me, but overall, this is only a minor issue compared to the other things I need to be upset over conserning DVD's.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

I have to say, this is an entertaining thread to read.

As someone with a reasonably large collection of DVDs and who has been collecting since their initial release back in the spring of '97, I can assure you that Michael Reuben is correct and that forced trailers have always been around. However, it is also true that the practice of forced trailers has increased and the practice of disabling a DVD player's controls has as well. It is also true that there are DVDs that disable the stop button during trailers. I have not yet run into one that prevented FF, but frankly I would not be surprised if there were some DVDs that do.

While this thread is obviously attracting a lot of people who want to vent their frustartions, venting wont change anything.

For those that are truly upset over forced trailers and would like future releases to be devoid of them, then my suggestion is stop buying and/or renting them and most importantly send letters to the studios explaining to them why it is you are refusing to buy and/or rent these DVDs.

Studios are businesses and as businesses they are continually looking at their sales and what motivates buyers. If they perceive that forced trailers are causing a drop in sales then you can expect a change.

Until that happens you can expect the practice of forced trailers and adds (yes that's right, soon we will see adds on DVDs and not just as inserts in the packaging) to only increase.

BTW: Hmmm... When is the last time you rewound a VHS tape? That is one race I'd put my money squarely on the guy FF a DVD's trailers vs a guy rewinding an entire 2hr VHS tape.

 

[MarkHastings]

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I guess I didn't word it like I was thinking it. What I was getting at was, I wasn't exactly comparing the two in terms of actual time, it was more in 'percieved' time.

It just seemed that whenever you'd rewind a VHS, it meant you were finished with the movie and would probably get up to go to the bathroom (or whatever) so the rewind time wasn't too noticable.

With the DVD's, I usually pop them in and sit on the couch in anticipation of watching the movie. Every second I have to sit and wait through an FBI warning or FFWD through a trailer, seems like a minute.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Yesterday, but they vary too. My Panny must go at least 5 times as fast as my Toshiba.

Anyway, It would hurt not being able to buy a certain movie just because of the forced trailers, but the letter is a must. Heck, just keep a form letter in your computer.

You can tell them that this is what you have done...

"If I plan on watching a movie at 8 i put the disk in at 7:50 and spend the next ten minutes getting ready (Pop, chips or whatever). Then at 8 I sit down and turn the TV on. When I hit the menu button, it goes right to the menu."

Do not forget to mention your player's model number.

Glenn

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

But there is no forced trailer warning on the package. You can't tell there are any forced trailers until you start playing the disc.

 

[Leo Kerr]

The Pioneer DVD-V7400 is a marvelous player, missing only progressive scan outputs. It also as an RS-232 input, and a nice, easy control language. So far as I've encountered, no RS-232 command is ever 'blocked.'

I've often been tempted to take a retired computer (laptop) and have it handy to tell my projector what to do.. maybe I should also consider having one to tell my (non-existant) industrial DVD player what to do, too.

Leo Kerr
[email protected]

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Most good reviews (which are often posted before street date) will let you know if the trailers are forced. I've seen several HTF DVD reviews with notation on forced trailers, and there are certainly many other popular DVD review sites that will often state if the trailers are forced.

Frankly, I would not be surprised, due to the amount of disappointment in forced trailers, to find that someone may have already created a site dedicated to ending forced trailers and perhaps has listed all the known DVD titles with forced trailer.

Again, if forced trailers truly bother people there are things they can do to try and make a difference.

 

[David Prior]

This comment is key. If you think of DVD's from a marketing perspective, it doesn't matter what relevancy they'll have two years down the line. In fact, the less the better -- you hope to be selling another version by then.

On one hand I share Michael's feelings about the overriding benefit of having a high-quality, inexpensive format to watch movies on at home. But on the other hand, I see this kind of aggressive over-marketing as a real threat the culture at large. It's not just in DVD but the proliferation of advertising everywhere you look. And I can't escape the feeling that it cheapens whatever it touches.

Not that one man's opinion amounts to much in the end. This kind of thing probably just has to run its course. If enough people get sick of it, eventually it will stop.

 

[MarkHastings]

From a marketing perspective, I see it as being VERY key. After the hype of (insert movie from a forced trailer here) tones down a few years or so from now, they will still have advertisements out there in the form of forced trailers.

Let's say your friend comes over to watch a two year old DVD...When you play the movie and a forced trailer comes up, even though the trailer isn't new, your friend may not own the movie and might be interested in purchasing the DVD (or may not have even realized it was available on DVD). In fact, he may have also forgotten about that particular movie (since it is 2 years old)

Sure this method may not work for those of us who know of every DVD that's currently produced or in production, but a slick trailer will make your average Joe/Jane interested in a movie they may not have ever thought about.

Yes it sucks for us, but I can see why the studios do it - $$$$$$

I wish there was a way to prove that it is unfair of them to do. There should be some sort of regulation on disabling buttons on a DVD player, but I don't know how you can enforce it or what reasons you could use to say it was unjust.

This reminds me of the talk about web sites that would disable keys on your keyboard. I don't recall the outcome, but there were those who were taking legal actions to say that it is illegal to disable these keys.

 

[Matt Rexer]

Well, disabling remote buttons is just a part of the DVD Specification. Presumably, it was A-Okayed as a keen idea when the DVD folks created their standard. I can certainly see how it would be useful for directing the user's experience of the software... it's just too bad it's also been used for evil, and that there's no easy way to get around it.

In fact, I bet the reason why no DVD players on the common market ignore disabled button commands is because that wouldn't be adhearing to the official DVD spec. A DVD player that ignored such things probably wouldn't get to put an official "DVD" logo on its case... I doubt any major manufacturer would try to market such a player.