Thou Shalt Not: A message from consumers to DVD producers (1 Viewer)

[Yee-Ming]

Not just abolish region coding, but unify rights-holdings so that releases across the world are the same, save for additional local language tracks or subtitles, in all regions. It is idiotic for certain regions to get features not available in others. In this day of global MNCs, why can't the bloody studios get their act together such that they control worldwide rights instead of hiving bits and pieces off to third parties?

Stranger still are cases where they presumably do control worldwide rights, yet some regions get "exclusive" features not available in others. Latest cases in point: Bond 19 & 20, where R2 (oddly) gets bonuses not available in R1.

 

[Josh Sieg]

NO MORE CARDBOARD SNAPPER CASES!

 

[John Watson]

Somehow, I don't think 10 COMMANDMENTS is going to suffice

 

[Ricardo C]

Absolutely -for foreign films. For films in English with other languages in some scenes, if the movie had subtitles in a nice attractive elegant font in cinema, thou shalt not replace it with Arial 14pt. Case in point - the Elvish subtitles in LOTR - lovely font in theatres, ugly on DVD.

I love the LOTR font too, but not having it burned in on the DVD makes sense, at least if the disc features multiple subtitle options. If someone's watching the film with Spanish or French subs on, the burned-in subtitles would not only be in the way, they would also be in the wrong language.

I'd rather get localized releases every single time (i.e., I could buy a Spanish edition with the Elvish font spelling the text in Spanish, and an American could get an English-only edition with English Elvish subs), but sadly, that's not likely to happen. Even the Latin American edition of FOTR included both Spanish and Portuguese subtitles, so we couldn't have the burned-in subs. And from what I've read the R1 release of TTT will have both English and Spanish subs, so bye-bye to the Elvish font.

 

[oscar_merkx]

Re Patrick's & Randy's comments about the audio commentary re Ben Hur

Great to hear that you can actually skip to the next bit

I agree with no more Snappers & bring on more Silent Pictures

 

[MatthewA]

Yes!
Especially half hour shows!
and every episode should have the opening credits before it and the ending credits after it!!! That means you Disney!

What show was this that didn't have opening and closing credits?

 

[Steve_Pannell]

No autoplay.

Besides being annoying, I can't understand why a studio would go to the trouble of having a nice menu only to bypass it with autoplay. (Ghost Ship is the most recent example that comes to mind).

 

[Chris]

Thou Shall Not Ship BS InterActual Interplay, repeatedly in branded, movie specific versions as a watered down DVD Player for the consumer.

Thou Shalt Remember: if a DVD has a DD 2.0 and a Dd 5.1 track, the DD 5.1 shall be Audio Track 1 (default) and not another track (Planet of the Apes)

Thou Shalt Remember: DVDs available only as "flippers" shall be replaced with DVD-9 discs as soon as is possible.

Just to be contrary (this will not make the list but)
Thou shall ship DVDs in space-saving CD Cases, OR if you must ship in trash-bait longboxes, come up with a better "security tape" system so that DVD cases aren't torn up getting the security stickers off.

Thou Shall Not release stripped down, movie only DVDs at outrageous prices because they represent children's entertainment, and though SHALL follow the lead of Big Idea .... that means you Disney (Compare $17 "Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie" 2 disc set to $24 "Movie" Treasure Planet" Bah!)

Thou Shall Not use "extra" copy protection on Audoi Tracks, causing mute effects on many players (DISNEY! Atlantis)

Thou Shall Not advertise supplimental features that, in fact, are not on the disc.

 

[Philip Verdieck]

What Jeff Kleist said

 

[Paul McElligott]

Thou shalt include chapter stops for all movies, no matter what oddballs like David Lynch want.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Phillip, which thing that I said My last comment was back on page 1

Unfortunately with more and more movies being co-productions, rights are going to get more fragmented instead of less

 

[Patrick McCart]

Thou shalt include chapter stops for all movies, no matter what oddballs like David Lynch want.

Thou shalt obey thy filmmaker's wishes with no exceptions.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Though shalt break TV shows into chapters. Who cares that they're only 44 minutes long.

 

[Bill Williams]

Thou shalt include episode trailers to TV shows on every season box set. This one's for Paramount - you put the episode trailers for the original Star Trek series on each DVD disc, yet don't include them in all of the TNG and DS9 sets? Shame shame, Paramount!

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Thou shalt not listen to the whinings of those who know not what they talk about

 

[AnthonyWilliams]

Thou shalt make selecting menu options easy to read on the screen. Not a common problem, but it does happen.

 

[Jimmy M]

Thou shalt make the Menu Cursor easy to locate and see ("er, what option will be chosen if I hie 'Enter' right now? I dunno...")

Thou shalt place a new chapter at each commercial break location for all television shows.

Thou shalt provide menu listings that clearly describe what they do.

Thou shalt include a subtitle track which indicated which footage was not in the theatrical version, when playing a special edition film.

Thou shalt use plastic Amaray style cases for all product, including multi-disc sets and Warner Brothers product.

Thou shalt enable all Pre-Program features to be skipped by pressing >|.

Thou shalt not ignore OAR.

Thou shalt use original poster art where applicable.

Thou shalt always include trailers, be it film or television show.

Thou shalt make it well known if there will be more than one release of a title.

Thou shalt not have a menu which repeats the same music after a few seconds ('6th Day' anyone?)

Thou shalt not release a product mastered from a dirty, scratched, badly-in-need-of-cleaning print.

Thou shalt release the original, unedited Star Wars trilogy.

Thou shalt not necessitate such a long list of "Thou shalt not's."


Jimmy!

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Thou shalt obey thy filmmaker's wishes with no exceptions.

I heard somewhere that FWWM has chapter breaks, but no scene selection menu. I consider that would be a good compromise for someone like Lynch (who wants people to just watch the film) versus people who want chapter breaks - they can have the chapter breaks, but we're not going to make it easy for you to use them.

The irony is that Lynch is one person who NEEDS chapter breaks, because when you're watching his films, often you may need/want to go back to check something that happened earlier to try and understand the film.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I agree. BUT, are the subtitle streams limited to 14pt Arial?

Nope. They are only limited by only allowing 4 colors (1 must be used for transparancy). Some companies like AnimEigo have figured out how to blend colors to get up to 3 readable subtitle colors on-screen at once.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Agreed abotu emnu selection. And also you should be able to point and click on DVD-ROM. It annoys me when you have to click next to the text to make it work.