Keep Commercials off DVD! Sign linked Petition in Post #76 (1 Viewer)

[doug zdanivsky]

I've forwarded a message to Atlantis/Allience..

And I'm going to see if Ron Epstein can be of any help..

 

[Tom_Bechet]

this is unbelievable :frowning:



thanks for the headsup I will not get the canadian version of this now.

I don't think this is similar to ads in theatres. there have been ads in the cinemas for as long as I can remember.
However to put it on DVDs and nonskippable is a slap in the face for any consumer. We pay our hard earned cash for a 15-20€ (dollar or whatever) DVD and have to watch ads

What annoys me even more is that pirate copies won't have this on it.
(please not I'm not saying we should get pirate copies, I WOULD NEVER buy one one but that's not the point here)

I think we now have to react to this in force, if one of them gets through with this the others will follow

The public service announcement on Fast and the furious was bad enough. this is too much though

 

[John CW]

Absolutely shocking!

Letters sould be sent to Pontiac!

 

[Colton]

DVD Shrink is your friend. Just re-master it without the annoying commercial. Problem fixed.

- Colton

 

[Tom_Bechet]

Colton,

besides not having the right equipment. I refuse to having to remaster all DVD I buy just because the people who get paid for that can't do their job properly. Of course if you backup your DVDs in order to keep the original safe and sound, then that little extra work won't matter, but how many of us really do that?

 

[Kevin M]

Not to stray too far from the subject but I have done it with every OOP/"Altered in newer pressings" (The Devil's Advocate - Martin) title I have.

 

[AaronMK]

No consumer likes this practice. All it does is create ill will toward the studios and the companys and films that are advertised. Hopefully they will realize that this is just hurting both the products advertised and the studios themselves. Hopefully the studios will get this message, even if there are some titles people will want badly enough to put up with this crap.

I know personnaly they are many titles I did not buy or rent because of unskippable trailers. There are many movies that I did not buy or rent because the trailer for them was shoved in my face so many times on DVDs that I did want badly enough to put up with the annoyance. I don't go to the theaters nearly as often because they feel it is okay to make me a captive audience to ads before the show. The short message to the studios and companies advertising: YOU ARE GETTING LESS OF MY MONEY; IT IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT. It seems to be the same with many other people I have talked to as well.

If you are pirating a DVD to avoid any kind of forced advertising, you are completely justified IMO. When the studios feel they can forcefully shove ads at you on content you have paid for, they don't deserve a penny of your money.

 

[Mike D]

Is this the first instance of advertisments (forced or not) on a DVD? Is this the beginning of a disturbing trend? It will be if you sit back and shrug it off. Is there anyone who believes that what the world needs is more advertising? Enough is enough! It's up to you to make them stop.

I encourage every concerned consumer to make their displeasure heard. Tell Alliance you will not buy any DVD that includes paid advertisements (forced or not). Demand they reissue this DVD without ads.

Carmite Cohen
Director of Marketing, Home Video
Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution Group
Tel: (416) 966-7715
E-mail: [email protected]

edit: on maternity leave
try Erica Lewis (416) 934-6930

 

[Edwin-S]

Sorry, I cannot agree with you. Let us say you had a business that charged an admission. Someone could pay the admission and then be pissed off because he didn't like the color of the curtains; however, that does not give him permission to lift the fine china as punishment for the perceived offence.

Pirating a DVD is no different. The DVD authors may be assholes, but a person still does not have the right to pirate their material. Pirates are assholes because they help drive up the overall cost of these discs. They are also assholes because legitimate buyers are forced to deal with anti-copying algorithms that take up space that could be better used for improving the sound or picture of the movie.

If high definition discs are rendered unplayable through component outputs then it will be because of stinking pirates. If non-component HD becomes the standard then my and other people's sets will be unusable for HD discs. If that scenario occurs then I hope every DVD pirate burns on the seventh level of Hell.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Forced ad & a bad transfer, the future is not looking bright!

 

[Edwin-S]

What was wrong with the transfer? It didn't look too bad to me.

 

[doug zdanivsky]

I don't suppose anyone knows how to set up an online petition?

I'd like to start one, but have no idea how this is accomplished..

 

[Brandon Conway]

Re: Finding Neverland being a Disney film.

It is not.

It is a Miramax film.

The US DVD is distributed by Buena Vista (Disney).

The Canadian DVD is distributed by Alliance Atlantis (Universal, it appears).

The problem is with the Canadian DVD, and therefore has nothing to do with Disney.

 

[DougWright]

I wrote to alliance/atlantis about this. I hope I get a reply.

If they make HDDVD unplayable through component outs, they will only hurt the honest guy. Pirates will use technology to overcome that hurdle as they have every other hurdle in the past in this cat and mouse game.

Made by humans, cracked by humans.

The only ones who pay are the honest ones

 

[Lloyd White]

While I agree with the sentiment in this thread, I do not mind watching trailers before a movie in a movie theater. I find that it gets me ready to watch a film. I've watched movies in the theater where I came in just in time for the movie starts and I find myself not as focused as I would've been. Ofcourse, DVD is not the movie theater and I have different watching habits that make forced trailers a pain. Hopefully there will be more players with like 50x fast forward,which is what I usually do to forced trailers.

 

[CaseyL]

I find that if there is unskippable ads, you can usually hit "Stop" and get the "Press play to resume" message, but don't hit play, hit "Menu" and it'll bring you to the menu. works about 85% of the time. This is by no means condoning ads, I can't stand them, but it is a work around.

 

[doug zdanivsky]

So, nobody knows how to set up an online petition, then?

 

[doug zdanivsky]

PS, I've heard back from Universal/Allience:

Hello Doug,

We do understand your frustrations and they will be passed on to our Marketing/Sales departments for future consideration. You are not the first consumer that has emailed regarding this issue, and I'm sure you will not be the last. This is an on going concern amongst many consumers that we are looking at changing (hopefully in the near future). Having the option to skip/bypass previews (not just fast forwarding), as well as having them listed as a play option on the main menu have been suggested by many.


All issues are addressed with our Marketing/Sales departments immediately upon receipt. These issues are then re-addressed with our U.S. office, who are ultimately in charge of making any changes to our current process.


I thank you very much for your email, and welcome any further comments that you may have.

Best Regards,
Kerry-Ann Holtom
Universal Studios/Alliance Atlantis Video
Customer Service Coordinator

 

[Mike D]

Doug, that email sounds pretty generic. No doubt a form letter to address complaints about forced trailers. There is no specific mention of Finding Neverland or about the objectionable practice of selling advertising space on DVDs.

 

[AaronMK]

The pirates will always find ways around the copy protections, and the studios know this. It has been said many times that the copy protections are meant "to keep honest people honest". Unfortunatly, nowadays, "honest" means abiding by any use restrictions the studios see fit to implement (like not skiping forced trailers, having to buy an iPod to take iTunes purchases on the road instead of the player of choice, etc), and doesn't mean just staying within fair-use and copyright law. If there was not a piracy problem, the studios would probably create one so they could continue to put implementation of such restrictions under the cloak of anti-piracy. The copy protection schemes take up a negligible amount of space on the disc. If space is an issue, then why are they wasting it on ads that no consumer wants?

I never said piracy was right and don't mean to imply that. I said that, in my opinion, someone would be justified in taking that route to avoid forced ads. I know that there is a fine line between right and justified, but it is there.