TVonDVD Pet Peeves (1 Viewer)

[MatthewA]

Well said, Brett.

As for DVD-18s, it may be the only solution for hourlong shows and I can live with it.

I have come to loathe the overlapping discs. Dallas: S3 is the latest offender. The slim cases that Sony now uses should be used in all cases. I don't want to have to worry about breaking discs.

What I also don't like:

—Cut versions of episodes (I should NOT have to keep saying this). I pay for "The COMPLETE xth season", and I expect it to be Complete. If complete versions do not exist (which only seems to be the case in extreme incidents), say so on the packaging. For I Love Lucy, they have gone out of their way to present the episodes uncut, and only once out of 180 shows have they slipped up.
—Music replacements (The publishers are pricing themselves out of getting ANY money for the songs' usages. No single song is worth $50,000. Not Beethoven's 5th, not White Christmas, not Love and Marriage, not Stairway to Heaven, and certainly not anything they put out today)
—Lack of original airdates mentioned anywhere on the packaging
—Original studio logos replaced by current ones. (Bewitched was a SCREEN GEMS production, NOT a Sony Pictures Television one)
—Putting out inferior copies when restoration is needed. If it's between waiting for quality and getting crap now, I'll take the former.
—Inconsistent release patterns, especially Sony's. Diff'rent Strokes should be on Season 3 by now. All in the Family should have been finished by next year. If no restoration/tape rejuvenation is needed, nor licensing problems, there is no excuse.
—Colorization (With Bewitched, I had to break down and get it online, because no B&M stores had the black and white version). Do they put out black and white versions of color shows?
—Unskippable Disclaimers (Lion's Gate has a good one: "This DVD commentary contains opinions and statements of the individuals participating in them." Oh, really?)
—Lack of GOOD, SUBSTANTIAL, INFORMATIVE extras (Larry Hagman's "Helmet hair" comment on a commentary for Dallas S1/S2 is not what I'm talking about). This includes original promos, outtakes, interviews (either archival or recent), and other rare archival material.

 

[Katherine_K]

I wasn't interested in buying this one but I have payed attention to what is available in stores around here. I've seen only the colored episodes in Target and Wal-mart, but surprisingly BJ's (big east coast warehouse membership club) had tons of both the color and black and white sets.

 

[LarryDavenport]

I second the 2-sided discs (my Due South discs won't play on my computer, which I take with me to dialysis).

I also wish that the sets put out by A&E, like Homicide or the Persuders weren't so damned expensive compared to WB or Fox.

My final complaint is having to buy seasons of Combat in two sets. I only bought the first season so I might wait for the complete box to wind up on Ebay.

But not everything is negative. I have to give cudos to WB for including a coupon in season 10 of Friends for the Deluxe box for those of us who've bought all the sets as they've come out.

 

[ElijahS]

While I don't like double-sided discs, I appreciated Universal doing it after the first season sets of the various L&O shows, since having (eventually) thirty sets or more of the combined seasons would have been space-consuming. With the popular usage of double slim-cases though, I wish they would do single-sided discs again.

 

[Bill>Moore]

I'm surprised at all the Play All complaints, too. Never used it. If I'm watching multiple eps, I just hit Menu, down, enter and I'm watching the next ep a few seconds later.

The things I hate most on TV on DVD:

Bare Bones - if the stars are still around and the show is less than 25 years old, there ought to at least be some sort of featurettes or something. Maybe a commentary or two. The original Battlestar Galactica had LOTS of deleted scenes, which was nice.

Too Many Eps on Discs - don't bring DVD quality down by putting too much video on the disc!

Double-Sided Discs - I take the DVDs with me when I'm working (which puts me on the road half the month), so that saves space, but it's tough when I'm trying to figure out what eps are on what disc. Sometimes, it's even tough to figure out what is disc one, disc two, disc three, etc.

 

[ElijahS]

My love of the play all function comes from the fact that I sometimes play DVDs before I fall asleep, and I might watch a few before falling asleep. With the play all function, I can watch while becoming drowsy without having to find the remote.

Also, I sometimes have a sitcom on in the background as noise that I occasionally hear and laugh at.

 

[RyanAn]

The thing you have to remember is that you have a remote. I do not really consider clicking on a remote "tedious" - think about if we hypothetically had a DVD with no remote and had to search the menus that way. We have it easy.

Either way - you see the show you want at your own leisure. I hate overly animated menus and trade laws, forced ads, etc, but you still have the option to fast-forward to the "true" beginning of an episode if you so choose. I agree with just about everything that everyone has stated already, if you want this all to have some effect, email or call the studio.

Ryan

 

[george kaplan]

Well every one is different. I often watch an entire disc, and love the play all option. Even if I stop, when I come back, the dvd picks up where it stopped. Having to cycle through the menu for each new episode is admittedly a minor inconvenience, but it's still an inconvenience. I on the other hand, am not personally bothered by spoilers of any sort, cause I can't imagine buying a dvd of a tv show or a movie that I haven't seen before.

But either way, neither of these are the big problems, which have already been alluded to (MAR, cut episodes, music replacement, forced menus). I also get really, really pissed at the overlapping discs on shows like Home Improvement. Basically, this forces me to separate the discs and put one of them in it's own case. Which looks really stupid on the shelf. Which is a minor thing, but still, it's very irritating mostly cause there's simply no reason at all to provide such slipshod, stupid packaging.

 

[Scott-S]

This is not true on some / most discs. Most will not let you bypass the the studio logos, legal disclaimers, fbi notice etc. Only some let you bypass the trailers / ads.

 

[Natalie F]

Hmm, really? I skip past all that crap every time. I only have 4 or 5 discs that won't let me skip that stuff (none of them are tv shows).

ETA: Wait. My Dead Like Me discs won't let me skip the MGM ad crap, but it's only like 15 seconds, so it's not too bad.

 

[ElijahS]

It usually depends on the DVD player. Some brands are easier to skip through than others.

 

[Alex-A]

I have found that FOX discs are great for skipping right through everything. Someof the more annoying ones are Paramount and Universal.

 

[Johnny S]

My new biggest TV on DVD pet peeve... Box art is a hollowed out head.

 

[george kaplan]

The only studio that consistently makes it impossible to skip or fast forward through the preliminary crap is Paramount.

 

[Roger_S]

1. Edited/Syndicated Versions--These cut episodes should be #1 on everyone's hate parade

2. Loose Discs--Whenever I get a TV set by mail, it seems more often than not one or more discs has come loose and is bouncing around inside. There's got to be a way to stop this once and for all.

3. No extras--Generally, it doesn't bother me too much but when you have certain extremely popular series like M*A*S*H and they have absolutely no extras at all, come on...

 

[seanOhara]

Sets where the slip case doesn't contain any description of the series, so the studio glues a flier to the back with rubber snot.

 

[MishaLauenstein]

- Now that the amazing Slim Case has been invented, anyone who doesn't use them is just being a jerk. Mary Tyler Moore switched to Slim Cases for Season 2 and I couldn't be happier.
- Logo Replacement. Even the EXTRA logo (Dick Van Dyke) tagged on is a bit off-putting.
- Visible Compression Artifacts (If I wanted a crappy picture, I would watch my VHS)
- Advertisements (for other products) should NEVER be listed on the box or any other promotional material as a Feature (Special or otherwise), unless it's something like 'See the new Trailer for X-Men 4, only available on the Spider-Man 3 DVD'

Cut episodes is not a pet peeve because I would never buy such a product and it therefore doesn't affect me.

 

[Brian Himes]

Well, my list is short.

#1 Has to be 2-sided discs. This is such a pain. They have GOT to go.

#2 No 'play all' feature. I watch my TV in large chunks and it's just a pain to have to go back to the main menu after each episode. Thankfully this seems to be a thing of the past for most studios.

#3 The ads, the ads, the ads! If I can't skip them I get really bugged. If I wanted to see commercials I'd watch TV.

I do like the slim cases approach. I wish more studios would adopt these.

 

[Jonny P]

I want to echo the fact that I share everyone's disdain for the "overlapping disc packaging" that many studios are starting to use for these sets.

I realize that shelf space in stores is at a premium, but I have ended up with severely marred, scuffed and scratched discs with this method. It is a terrible way to package DVDs.

They need to go with slim-cases instead. I don't care about "clever" packaging. Give me a good-looking cover and I'll be fine.

Seriously...are they all trying to win some "DVD packaging" award?

The simpler the better.

 

[David Rain]

The great thing about slim cases is that there can be episode descriptions on the back instead of having all of the synopsis crammed together in one booklet or printed awkwardly throughout the packaging. And my favorite thing, each slim case means room for more artwork and publicity photos.