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

[Michael Reuben]

Not on my system. Skipped right past 'em.

M.

 

[Chris Farmer]

For some peopel though Michael fast forward isn't necessarily an agreeable option. For peopple with 100x FF where they puch the button three times then wait five seconds it's alright, but not all of us have that. In my apartment with my roommate, our PlayStation 2 doubles as a DVD player. On a PS2, you get 8x speed max, AND you have to sit there, with the controller in hand, HOLDING the fastforward button the entire time.

I agree with the consensus, FBI warnings are a pain but acceptable for non-skipping, but the chapter skip/menu button should NEVER be disabled during trailers. Those should always be optional. Sure, they're fuin the first time, and contribute to the "theatrical" experience, but a, they got old fast, and b, they date the DVD horribly. I always laugh when I put in an old DVD that says "Coming soon to theaters" and it's a preview for some ancient movie that did 2 million at the box office and has already been relegated to the dust bin of history. And it's not somethign I feel like being forced to sit through every time I put in the disc. Fox lets you skip everything, Paramount gives you a menu choice, Disney tells you to hit the Menu button to skip, Universal makes me sit there for three minutes with a PS2 controller in my hands holding down the fastforward button. Unacceptable.

 

[Chris Farmer]

Oh, and just to continue on why button disabling is a pain. Who hear wouldn't have liked to see teh title button on their Harry potter and the Sorceror's (or Philosopher's ) Stone DVD enabled so they could skip all that kiddy crap about buying the wand and attending classes and all that other garbage and gone straight to the deleted scenes?

 

[Ian_H]

The worst example of "forced" trailers was on The Life Of David Gale. I loaded the disc the menu came up and then I hit play movie and then the trailers started. I could fast-foward but that was ridiculous.

-Ian

 

[PhilipG]

Ian, I've found the quickest way to start a movie from the main menu (on average) is to go to scene-selection, and selecting the first chapter (which is usually already highlighted). That's two selections, better than the worst case scenario of "Play movie"->"trailers"->"FBI warning"->"FBI warning (in French)"->"MPAA rating"->"finally, the movie".

 

[Will_B]

Fast Forwarding didn't work well on my old system because the Fast Forward would stop at each chapter point (so the FBI warning would fast forward, then stop when it hit the first trailer, then stop again when that trailer was over, etc).

 

[Matthew_Brown]

Gah, whatever the solutions I think it's agreed it's something we would like to do without. Especially (or even specifically) on bought home DVD's rather than rental versions.

 

[Malcolm R]

Once you get to the main menu, you're usually home free. The problem is all the forced garbage is before the disc even gets to a menu. You put the disc in the player, the trailers/ads start. Ten minutes later you get to the menu (if you can't skip or FF).

There's no reason for the studio to disable any functions of the player. Some people like trailers and will watch them anyway. Everyone else they're just pissing off. So the trailers are not gaining any marketing advantage, just generating ill will toward the studio and their products.

 

[Scotty_McW]

I'm in the minority here, because forced trailers and warnings don't bother me at all.



I totally agree with you Michael. If I have to sit through these warnings and trailers, but the cost of the disc is cheaper and the quality is superior to what was available before, fine with me. If I can't skip warnings or trailers, I use the time to grab me some snacks. When I come back, the movie is ready to go.

DVD has suceeded beyond anyone's wildest hopes or expectations. If this is the price to pay for getting all of our favorite films on such a great format, then that is a small price to pay.

 

[Chet_F]

"You may have been fortunate enough not to encounter any of these titles when you started collecting, but that doesn't change the facts."

Yes. And the fact is when I started buying DVDs I DID NOT have a forced trailer. The menu button worked. End of story.

Now it is different and it is getting increasingly worse.

You may see things differently. That's fine. But just because they are accetable to you do not think they are for the rest of us. It's simply mudding up the water of a great hobby in order to line their pockets with a few extra $$.

 

[Doug Otte]

I agree that the forced trailers are bad, but I think it comes down to the quality of your player. I never have problems with pressing skip, skip, skip to get through the trailers, except...

I have one adult disc like this one, & it's a pain.

But again, if you have a better player, it's not so bad. My Sony DVP-NS755V has disc memory. Once I go through the trailers once, the next time I put in the disc, it starts right where I left off. It holds 60 discs in memory (I think).

So, you get what you pay for. To me, hitting skip on DVDs is much better than having to fast forward through trailers on a VHS.

Doug

 

[MarkHastings]

Not that I am going to start boycotting DVD's, but it does seem silly why they would disable the menu or skip button but still allow you to fast-forward.

What it sounds like to me is that they are trying to cover their butts. It's like they want to force you to watch these previews, yet they don't want to disable everything because they need a loophole if people start bitching and complaining. Sure many of us know how to FFWD through the previews when the skip or menu buttons don't work, but a lot of consumers won't figure this out and the studios are hoping (especially when kids wacth the DVD's) that the advertisements will cause them to want more DVD's.

Again, not that it bugs me to the point of signing a petition, but there is some sort of angst against a studio who's only method of disabling buttons is to try and make you watch something that is distracting to those who are only interested in watching the movie and not in the mood for a sales pitch. I can't see any other reason for disabling a button.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Um, wasn't the original poster complaining about when the skip button is locked out? If a DVD locks out all the buttons except for fast-forward, then it is exactly the same as fast-forwarding through trailers on a VHS cassette.

 

[Thomas Newton]

Precisely.

 

[Benson R]

With every major universal release now there seems to be a thread complaining about forced trailers. Perhaps there should be a sticky thread in software just about universal's new policy and maybe then if any people from the studio see the forum they will get the message.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I usually either fast foward or use the stop and hit menu button trick. So far, the only disc that intentionally disables for the sake of disabling that I'm aware of is Criterion's version of Knife in the Water. But that's during the movie.

Not exactly the most realstic of things if you ask me.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Actually I have a Samsung DVD player that I bought in Sydney that on some new DVDs won’t let me use the ‘menu’ option.

I just fast forward (or sometimes use the search button) to get to the end of any upfront stuff.

Interesting location in your sig, Rodney. I used to see movies there when I lived in Glenelg.

 

[Ted Todorov]

A slightly different topic perhaps, but I have encountered numerous DVDs with forced player generated subtitles. These are considerably more annoying than forced trailers, because in most cases there is no way to turn them off.

I am puzzled that with all the endless different Region free players out there it so difficult to find one that ignores all the software restrictions. I agree that trying to get all DVD producers to change their evil ways is a losing proposition.

But region coding has been made irrelevant by technology -- there is no reason not to defeat all the other restrictions and make FBI warnings, forced trailers, forced subtitles and disabled audio switching a thing of the past.

Frankly, I am not aware of ANY good quality DVD players that do it out of the box. And the only ones that do have the restriction over-riding ability are specially modified European Sonys and old, junky APEX players.

If someone knows of some other models, please speak up. The Toshiba mentioned above is not, to my knowledge, such a player. You still can't change locked soundtracks or turn off forced subs.

Time for a campaign to get DVD player manufacturers to ignore all restrictions.

Ted

 

[MarkHastings]

But with the DVD, you have to see the trailers (even thought they go by fast) whereas a VHS, you can use FFWD and not see anything.

Ok, I'm getting nit-picky now The other thing with VHS, is you could set timer so that when you rewound the VHS, you could stop it at the beginning of the movie and not have to FFWD through the trailers the next time you watched the movie. (Ok, I guess the time spent in rewinding the tape is equal to the time spent FFWD'ing the trailers on the DVD), but still...

I mean, I don't mind the trailers, but it's the point of having to skip through them EVERY time you put the disc in. Once should be enough.


But seriously, I'm not sure if everyone would agree to this, but why not make DVD's like software where you have a warning comes up that you have to accept in order to use the application. This would be the same for DVD's. The first time you put the disc in, the FBI warning comes up and you have an "Accept" button where you agree to the terms of the copyright. Then after you were forced to watch the FBI warning, all subsequent viewings would be FBI warning free.

I mean, I don't ever have to re-read the EULA everytime I start up Adobe Photoshop, or use Microsoft Windows...

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I have recently encountered discs where even the Stop button is disabled during the forced trailers. Not common, but it's definitely out there.

Consider that report conclusive.