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

[willieGoldman]

If they *EVER* put those Fanta ads on *ANY* DVD I will never buy another disc again.

No, I don't wanna Fanta!

-Willie

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

Sorry, guys, but I'm not singing the petition. Those ads help pay for the DVD I'm watching, and I don't want to promote cheap DVDs.

Understand, that's just how these things work. There are ads at the top of this page you are reading right now. If you wanted to remove those, who would pay for this site? Sorry, guys.

Besides, if you live in America, you pretty quickly become accustomed to seeing ads. It doesn't bother me much -- I can handle waiting thirty seconds for a movie to begin.

Cheers.

P.S. I find it rather amusing that you criticise someone for being too lazy to sign your petition, when the petition itself was started by people who don't have the patience for a thirty-second advertisement. In the time it takes to sign the petitiion, the advertisement will be over

 

[Tom_Bechet]

Elijah, I'm not sure whether you are joking or serious



but surely the money you pay for the DVD help to pay for the DVD, no??

this site has advertising because its free to use.
but because of this ad on the DVD, the DVDprice isn't smaller than usual, so essentially you pay for the ad and get nothing in return.

If I wanna see ads I watch the film on TV, since I don't want to watch ads, I pay money to get the DVD without ads.

simple.

 

[Vader]

Elijah,

Assuming that you were not joking, can I assume that the move theater prices where you live have been modified to account for the presence of commercials before the feature? After all, that is what pays for "free" television, so by the same logic, movie ticket prices should be discounted accordingly. If so, I wanna know what parallel universe you are referring to, so I can get Q-Ball, Wade, and Arturo and slide to it (after all, it's free - the commercials paid for it....) Seriously, you are comparing apples and oranges by saying that the ads help pay for the DVD. This practice is draconian marketing, plain and simple.

 

[Marc Colella]

I agree with Tom...

the price of the DVD pays for the cost of making it. They are priced to make a profit, and by adding ads the studios are just adding to their profit.

Ads on websites and such are there because the sites are free, and they need to generate some kind of revenue to keep it up.

As much as it's annoying, an ad before the feature at a movie theatre I can even live with - simply because it's a one-time viewing for that film anyways. On DVDs it's unacceptable, since I own it and shouldnt have to be subjected to it.

BTW, read the latest Ebert's "Answer Man" in the paper yesterday. Apparently a $60 Limited Edition DVD set of Amelie (only available in Quebec) includes a forced advertisement for wine. Imagine spending $60 and still having a forced (or non-forced for that matter) ad to deal with. Not only is that unacceptable, it's almost criminal.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

That doesn't make any sense. You're claiming that the forced ads make the DVDs cheaper, then say you don't want the DVDs to be cheaper.

 

[Rolando]

unless the cost of the DVD is 25% cheaper in Canada then in the US, the ad did NOT help bring down cost of DVD for consumers. All it did was add to the profit in Alliance's pockets.

I am so happy I have not bought an Alliance DVD for years. Thank God I can order my LOTR and other alliance distributed titles from the US.

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

I stand by my statements, guys. (And yes, I was serious.)

The entertainment industry does some stupid things, but when it comes to their methods of generating income, I don't question it. I want to see expensive movie productions, and I want to buy classy DVDs.

Also, you are leaving out an important part of the equation: studios (and stars/directors/producers) eat up a large part of DVD profits. The designers and manufacturers of the DVD get the smallest slice (as it is with movie theaters). The advertisements on the DVD are probably not because of the studio, but because of the manufacturer, who is hard-up for cash to continue producing pricey special editions of French movies that don't have a chance of turning a profit. In that regard, I would argue that ads do directly affect the price of a DVD, as well as it's quality -- which, to me, is more important, since I would be glad to pay more for higher quality.

My local theater has "forced" ads in front of the films they project. The theater put them there because the studios take 90% of the ticket price for themselves and they need to make their money back when they play movies like Garden State and Mulholland Dr. in a small rural community like my own.

Even if the relationship between ads and DVD quality is indirect or even proved non-existant, it's still a matter of studios needing to generate income. Most of them are bankrupt. We can debate whose fault that is (theirs, most likely), but the fact remains that I support their existance and don't oppose them getting money from sponsors in exchange for running ads.

It's not a big deal.

I could see signing a petition to get rid of the ads on the Amelie Special Edition from Quebec, specifically -- but wouldn't it be a more powerful message to the man for everyone who is upset about it to send their DVD back to Alliance and demand a refund, stating the ads as the cause?

Now, I don't mean to offend, but somehow I think that most of the owners of that DVD are too lazy to do so. Even if offered an ad-free replacement, most of the people who bought it would be too lazy. I mean, it's freaking irritating, but...

...it's not a big deal.

Cheers.

 

[Rolando]

Wouldn't it be ironic if Alliance released a statement claiming it was necessary to cover the extra cost of...

wait for it...

Have to change the cover to butt ugly bilingual covers and having to pay new encoding after removing audio tracks like DTS to add a French language track

My friends they are stupid enough...

wow wouldn't that be insult to injury... heck at this point it's salt and vinegar on an open wound!

Again, this is why I stay away from them now...

EDIT

PS, tried signing petition, got an error message 3 times.

 

[Vader]

Lazy?!? Then if we, who killed the Pandora's Box known as DIVX at the grassroots level, are to be termed lazy, then I assume that those you endorse are "active"? If that is the case, I can only thank the powers that be that "active" individuals were not in charge when DIVX was trying to penetrate the market. They were to "busy" arguing how Circus City and their Lawyer cronies deserved the money (regardless of the other implications), while we "lazy" people took action and killed it quickly.

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

Whoa, Derek, you're taking this waaaay too personally.

My argument wasn't intended to create an "us vs. them" dynamic; "lazy vs. active".

Also, I don't think it is fair to compare studio execs to oil tycoons. That's like comparing Enron execs to Satan. There are degrees of curruption.

When they put commercial breaks in movies, I'll sign your petition. Until then, it ain't happening.

 

[Francois Caron]

It wouldn't work. That particular special edition is distributed by TVA International, not Alliance.

 

[AaronMK]

To you, it is not a big deal. But reading the other posts, I get the impression you are in a very small minority.

From your post, I get the impression you believe that when a company is not making "enough" money on their products or services, that they are justified in bitch-slapping their customers.

So DVDs are not profitable without ads? Last I heard they make very large amounts of money for the studios, even on movies that "were not profitable". They also did so before studio logos and trailers were unskippable* (caugh, pointing finger at Paramount especially, cough), not to mention ads for non-movie products. They are even profitable enough to warrent two or more DVD releases of many films.

Don't feed me this "poor Hollywood" arguement and use it to justify forced ads and studio logos on DVD, or theaters and foreign distributors getting practically 0% of ticket or DVD sales and having to resort to forced advertising before the feature to make enough to operate. It doesn't hold water.

*Note: by skippable, I mean being able to press the menu key and get to the main menu. After paying a fair price for the DVD, is that too much to expect?

 

[Vader]

Elijah,

I apologize if I seemed to have jumped on the defensive, but I do think this is serious. Maybe a single commercial does not signal the end of the world, but as I said, this could become a Pandora's Box. Have you ever tried to boil a frog? If you simply throw it in a boiling pot of water, it will jump out. This is like the distributors innundating us from the start with forced advertising; it wouldn't fly. To successfully boil the frog without it knowing what is happening until it is too late, you put the frog in cold water first, then raise the temperature slowly (not that I make it a habit to cook amphibians - and a microwave is just plain more fun, but I digress ). Make no mistake; the advertising world knows full well that if something is introduced slowly enough to not raise hackles and eventually gain acceptance, they can eventually make the same changes that would have been rejected flat out if done all at once. To quote Picard,

On that we agree.....

 

[doug zdanivsky]

I don't think they're thinking ahead when in their drive to cover the cost of their DVD's with forced advertising they cause many (I hope) angry consumers from buying their DVD's..

Luckily, I only rented that "Finding Neverland" DVD..

I'll never rent or buy another..

But then, I say I'll never step foot in another Walmart, either..

Gotta... stay... strong.....

Seriously, It's people's apathy to this type of stuff that emboldens them to keep upping the ante..

We piss, and moan, and do nothing.. Gotta stop somewhere..

 

[Terry H]

Holy crap!

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...=417213&page=4

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

Point me towards the petition link...

 

[TravisR]

That'll never happen. Even normal people won't stand for that.

 

[Tory]

About theater commercials:

http://www.commercialalert.org/index...article_id/108

http://www.commercialalert.org/blog/...etimesbill.pdf

Looks like the government is trying to side with us on this one.

About the petition, the link turned up dead for me...

 

[Kevin M]

I agree with TravisR, even though many people can be fairly apathetic in this modern world I can't see anyone putting up with that. It is true that even on pay-TV many stations have resorted to these annoying pop-up adds & people have not yelled quite so loud about it...but I could never see people agreeing to pay for a DVD that would do this...never.