When Harry Met Sally Blu Ray (1 Viewer)

[NY2LA]

Fox has just reissued or repackaged and repromoted this title in January 2012. From Amazon listings it appears to be the same content as the previously released Blu Ray with only a change in the cover art. Just got it today and was disappointed to find another of Fox's lazy authoring jobs like they did with Fiddler On The Roof. NO Menu. Nada. Bupkes. Every time you press the menu button you get the "not allowed" icon. After too many pretentious Fox logos and legal warning that you cannot skip, the movie starts right away, which is too bad for anyone who is trying to view all the extras first. The Blu Ray format seem to have added a pop-up menu option so you could look for things while watching the movie, but rather than having that as an added option, some studio idiot seems to have decided that with this no full screen dedicated menus are necessary. So while you search for the features, you have to contend with the distraction of the movie playing in the background. You can pause the movie but that won't hold very long. Press stop, and that takes you out of the disc altogether and back to your player's menus. In addition, there are several sub-menus and no "play-all" option, so each of the numerous featurettes (which disable the popup menu during playback!) force you to go back to the feature and 3 layers of popup menus before you can get to the rest. Sometimes when you get back the next featurette title is up, sometimes not. Not sure if the supplements have been created or upscaled to HD, but they don't look too bad, but the authoring of this disc makes the viewer work harder than necessary to view the content and is NOT user friendly at all. Anyone else have the previous release of this title on Blu Ray? Was it the same or did it actually have the usual full -screen menus?

 

[Craig S]

I have the original pressing of this which came out as a WalMart exclusive last July. It is just as you described, so you can rest easy that you've not missed out on a version with a more traditional menu structure.


I'm with you in finding this annoying. It appears to be par for the course with Fox/MGMs budget catalog releases (I just watched Casino Royale (1967) this afternoon and it was setup the same way). However, given that I am paying $10 for these titles and the transfers are all fine, I can live with the lack of a main menu.

 

[NY2LA]

.

 

[NY2LA]

I have the original pressing of this which came out as a WalMart exclusive last July. It is just as you described, so you can rest easy that you've not missed out on a version with a more traditional menu structure.


I'm with you in finding this annoying. It appears to be par for the course with Fox/MGMs budget catalog releases (I just watched Casino Royale (1967) this afternoon and it was setup the same way). However, given that I am paying $10 for these titles and the transfers are all fine, I can live with the lack of a main menu.

Thanks for the confirmation on the previous release. I wouldn't call Fiddler On The Roof a budget catalog release, and a budget price is no excuse for lazy authoring. Full screen menus can't be more expensive to produce in Blu Ray than they were on DVD.

 

[Jeff Newcomb]

Pretty much all of MGM's Blu-ray releases have been menuless for months (years?)

 

[NY2LA]

Pretty much all of MGM's Blu-ray releases have been menuless for months (years?)

Anybody else find this objectionable?

 

[cafink]

So while you search for the features, you have to contend with the distraction of the movie playing in the background. You can pause the movie but that won't hold very long.

Wait, what do you mean? Does the movie automatically un-pause itself?

 

[NY2LA]

Yes The movie pause only lasts until you select one of the special features. The instant the feature you play is over, the movie is already running again, so you are forced to pause it again unless you don't mind the loud full screen distraction while you try to select other features. All Fox discs with these pop-up menus act this way. NO screen menu and the movie just plays on unless you manually pause it. Obviously whoever authored these discs for Fox apparently doesn't give any thought to how they would actually be used. Apparently the ADD mentality at the studios is these are not shows, they are software, like a video game, where they expect some kind of constant activity.