DVD pet peeve (1 Viewer)

[Jeff_HR]

My BIGGEST DVD peeve is when I am unable to make my desired audio & subtitle selection using my remote control. It angers & frustrates me to no end when a DVD requires me to make these selections only through the DVD menu.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

Just though of another one.

DOUBLE SIDED DISCS!

I absoloutly can't stand them. Not only do they look ugly, but they are a pain in the ass to figure out which side is the one you want.

 

[Donnie Eldridge]

Personally, I can't stand spoilers that are played in the menu's.

 

[John Alderson]

One solution for waiting for the DVD to get to the menu. You put the disk in and head for the kitchen, get your beer/whatever and return. By that time the FBI logo is gone, and the menu is usually up.

Aha! Exactly what I always used to think... that is, until someone MORONIC at Warner Bros. decided that if the main menu is up for, say, a minute without me doing anything, that it might as well go ahead and start playing the movie. Gee, thanks. I must be a parapalegic because I didn't hit play in under a minute, thanks for doing it for me!

DVD's that have done this to me:
The Goonies
The Perfect Storm
Harry Potter (both of 'em)
Three Kings

That's much worse than Warner's old method of just autoplaying the movie when you insert the disc. I don't like that either, but sheesh, it's better than having it play automatically after a menu comes up.

 

[Chris Rein]

I'm a shaker too, but what the hell do you do when you get a digipak (is that what they're called?). Speaking of which, 24 (seasons one and two) and ESPECIALLY The Alien Quadrilogy piss me off.

Let's see...I want to watch the first disc of ALIEN. I have to use my entire couch to open the son-of-a-bitch. Those cheap ass plastic trays have come unglued already in the Alien Quadrilogy, another gripe I have. Also, some ass-wipe at the factory didn't fully insert the book in the sleeve (another pain in the ass in my book...why won't that bastard fit in there nicely? Oh yeah, that damn security sticker is stuck down there preventing it from going in all the way!!)...and when they sealed it, the book got fully creased at the top. Nice. Anyway, that type of packaging is WORSE than those snapper cases that Warner "must" use. I'd love to go back to the Fight Club thread when half of us HTF'ers damn near broke the disc in half trying to pry that bitch loose!

And why do they INSIST on putting the security sticker UNDER THE CLEAR PLASTIC screwing up artwork that lies under the clear plastic tray!?!?!?

So much anger....

 

[Malcolm R]

But understandable since all it would take is a little common sense, or some advice from HT enthusiasts, to fix these on-going annoyances.

 

[Mike Frezon]

all it would take is a little common sense

That reminds me....

Hey, Malcolm! Remind me to share my latest BestBuy experience with you sometime! Really!

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

How about my HMV experience:

Goofy old man: Do you people even carry VHS?

Rare knowledgable salesperson: Yes we do, over here...

Goofy old man: I wont buy those dvds!

clerk: Oh, why is that sir?

Man: It's nothing but a ploy by the tv companies to make me buy a new tv if i dont want part of the picture cut off.

clerk: oh no sire, tv companies really have no say or interest in the dvd market, and in fact you are actually seeing the whole picture as it was originall intended to be seen on most dvds

man: do you think Im stupid? It doesnt take a genius to look at my tv and see that a bunch of it is black, and im sure as hell not gonan buy one of those newfangled widescreen things just so i can see the the whole dvd

Clerk (giving up): i see, well, i hope you find what you are looking for.


Which brings me to my next DVD pet peeve:

Having to deal with stupid people who are convinced they know better than you.

 

[Malcolm R]

clerk: so, you never go to the cinema, sir?

man: yes, I do.

clerk: then you must have noticed that big cinema screens are shaped as a rectangle, wider than they are high.

man: Hmmm, yeah, so?

clerk: well, your TV is probably square, right?

man: I guess so.

clerk: Did you fail geometry in high school sir? Because you certainly can't fit a rectangle into a square without some cutting.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

of course the funny part was that the man was convinced that the widescreen dvd were parts of the picture, and that the pan and scan VHS tapes were not.

 

[MarkHastings]

Maybe the wrinkled plastic has to do with expansion of the plastic? Considering the DVD's get thrown on trucks and are subjected to the cold temperatures and then are put in warm stores, I can see the plastic expanding and contracting, making all the wrinkles. I can't imagine they put those security strips on wrinkled.

Maybe they don't want you to change the audio because they want you to see that warning before listening to the commentary?

I know it sucks, but unfortunately there are people out there who get offended by commentary tracks and go after the studios , so we (the consumer) get screwed by not being able to switch tracks without seeing the studios "get out of jail - free card" first.

I wish they would just put that warning on the box (or disc) and get it out of the video. But, I guess they need to cover their ass 10 times over against 'overly sensitive' people. These overly sensitive people ARE ruining things for everyone else by being such cry babies. I would love to see a warning like they do on Happy Tree Friends.

Not recommended for small children or big babies

 

[TedT]

scratched disks annoy me! I got the latest JCW (ICP) DVD and had to return it 3 times to get a copy that wasn't completely scratched up! The copy I DID end up getting had a (female) pube in it! (opened them up at the store while doing the exchange so I didn't have to go back to the store again!)

 

[JamesCB]

Forced previews and auto-play top my list. Put in a DVD, head to the bathroom or kitchen before you want to start watching, you come back and either you missed the beginning or you're looking at previews. I like to take that time for the menu to load.

I'd like to add this:
Many DVD's are available in widescreen and pan-and-scan versions. Having a widescreen TV, I obviously pick the widescreen version. What bugs me is the special features (and previews) are in standard 4:3. That means they are streched out when my TV is in 16:9 mode. Just kind of annoying that I choose to purchase a widescreen movie, but forced to switch to 4:3 for the special features. It would be nice to get a TRULY widescreen DVD. Small inconvinience, but something that could be done when authoring the disc.

 

[Nick_Scott]

I absoloutly can't stand them. Not only do they look ugly, but they are a pain in the ass to figure out which side is the one you want

BenHur is like that. It doesnt even say "side 1" or anything like that. The only way to tell the difference is a serial number on side 1 is slightly different then side 2.
Bad...bad...bad

Also, similar to the many audio complains, I WANT to see the subtitles while listening to the commentary since you often can not hear the movie. Why do so many DVDs deactivate the subtitles?? bad...bad..

Funky cases are a big peeve. Legend has a cool "looking" case, but what am I supposed to do with it? I have a rubber band holding it together. I also don't like the Simpsons cases. All 3 seasons have loose DVDs that fly out when ever you open it. Those family guy types are the best.

Encoding is always a big peeve, but I don't think there is much we can do. Like interlace filter, Dolby compression, artifacts, EE, etc...etc...

nick

 

[Kalle Karpaasi]

I would have to say that my biggest peeve is the way the current DVD subtitles look.

For some reason people refer to these as 'player generated subtitles'. But these are actually bitmaps that are put there and rendered during the DVD production. The player just displays them as they are recorded on disk. There is no excuse for the crap look that they have.

I think I've seen a total of ONE DVD that had decent subtitles, as in properly anti-aliased (no huge pixel outlines and stair-stepping) and decently small (not covering too much of the picture) and that was the R2 release of Reign of Fire.

I just can't understand why they have to use that same crappiest of the crap font and size on most DVDs.

Is there anything that could be done to remedy this? Anyone have any say/pull on this that could get the word out?

Many of my other peeves have been mentioned in this thread already and so has been this one, but I just had to vent a little.

 

[MarkHastings]

as in properly anti-aliased

I don't believe sub title tracks can be anti-aliased. They are (I believe) only 1 bit images.

 

[Kalle Karpaasi]

I don't believe sub title tracks can be anti-aliased. They are (I believe) only 1 bit images.

They are limited to 4 colors. Plenty of shades for a nice anti-aliasing job. And as I said, I've seen it done very well at least on one DVD.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

The copy I DID end up getting had a (female) pube in it!

Okay, I'll bite. How do you know that it was the pube of a female? Is there some difference between male and female pubes that I am not aware of?

 

[Jeff Kuykendall]

I hate menu screens that play short pieces of music over and over and over until you hit play. I'd prefer either a long piece of music or music that fades after a while. It's a little more rare, but a related pet peeve is menu screens that show clips from the actual show (to repeat over and over), like the Fawlty Towers discs. Often I'll pop in a disc but wait a bit before starting the movie (make something to eat, etc.). Very often I have to turn the volume down, or start the movie and then hit pause immediately.

Can't menu screens just sit down and shut up?

 

[Kai Zas]

Okay, I'll bite.

Very brave of you! (Considerd doing that myself, but didn't want to go off topic )