Universal Tops At how Not to Put Out a DVD (1 Viewer)

[Dave Scarpa]

Well after the Back to the Future Debacle Univeral gives us another prime example of How not to release a Major Hit Release.

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

1st Make sure as soon as they hit play they get a nice
Preview in Non-anamorphic Widescreen instead of
going to the movie as you usually do after hitting
Play.

2nd Make all the Extras Deleted scenes, Music Videos
etc also in Non Anamorphic Widescreen.


Was the picture this soft in the Theater it might of been so I can't criticise. At least the Audio was top notched both the DD and DTS were good.

But really with the money this made universal could do better.

 

[Patrick McCart]

It's possible the deleted scenes were from AVID files, which would mean 4:3.

The music video was produced at 4:3.

The picture is likely perfect due to it being new.



There are other DVDs with much "worse" DVDs like the Image-Universal Marx Bros. DVDs.

 

[LennyP]

Now lets demand that extras and deleted scenes be remastered and in anamorphic widescreen with DTS EX SS 18.3 all the time.

Oh and it is so hard to press a remote button one more time to skip something like a preview.

 

[Dave Gilbert]

I've noticed the forced trailers at the start of both The Bourne Identity and About A Boy. It's not when you first pop in the disc, before the menu, either. The menu comes up right away and the trailers are shown when you try to play the movie. Pathetic.

Is it that hard to skip them? No. Point is, I shouldn't have to. I hope this will not become standard practice on all Univeral DVDs. You want to throw trailers for movies I'll never see on the disc? Fine. Just stash them under a trailer menu. When I select Play from the menu, I want to see the movie I bought, not trailers for another.

 

[Tony-B]

Are the trailers skippable? Can you just use the next chapter or fast forward button to just skip over them? If they do that, then it is at least better than locking out those functions, and FORCING you to see the trailers.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I believe the player blocks you from skipping the previews.

 

[Dave Gilbert]

You can't fast-forward, but you can chapter skip over it.

 

[Tony-B]

That's good. So they aren't completely forced.

 

[Christian Preischl]

I hate Disney preview trailers when you put in the disc, but what Universal does is definitely worse. Because once I press play I expect to see the damn movie and nothing else.
Of course the work around (apart from chapter skipping) is to start the movie through scene selection. Still sucks, though.

Chris

 

[LennyP]

I just watched The Bourne Identity, great DVD!

You can't fast-forward, but you can chapter skip over it.

You can't pause either, I wanted to pause it, really liked the upcoming Rowan Atkinson secret agent comedy.

I hate the user restrictions, it also doesn't let you change audio tracks during the movie, only through the menu, so you can't switch to or from DTS and commentary on the fly to compare and such. IFOEdit is a good program, one function of which is removing all PUPs so you can do anything with the disc, even pause a menu itself

 

[Aaron Garman]

Hello all. I was able to skip through the Johnny English trailer and the Total Axxes ad just by hitting next track on my Pioneer DV-414. I wish Universal had made this disc a 2 disc set because they jammed too much onto it. I felt that the picture in the film was extremely soft and just murky. In the theater, it did not seem to have this effect. As for the audio, the DTS 5.1 was the same, if not better than the DTS I heard theatrically. This is one of the best sound mixes I've heard in awhile. But honestly, I think we could have had a better picture had it gone to two discs or limit the amount of 5.1 tracks: there are 3 on this disc. Heck, I'd love a DTS only version with only a trailer as an extra and I'd be happy!

Aaron James Garman

 

[Jeff Kleist]

my DV-414 paused and was able to skip the trailers

 

[David Rogers]

With all Universal discs, one must use Scene Selection, Chapter One, to actually get the movie. This skips their stupid ads (which pusing Play will run).

They're still not as bad as Di$ney, who flatly refuses to let a disc come up to menu.

 

[Glenn_Jn]

I guess some people aren't happy unless they have something to complain about.

I just got done watching this DVD and it looked and sounded fine to me. Good movie too!

 

[Dave Gilbert]

Glenn -

I have no complaints about the movie itself - content, audio or video. What I do have an issue with being forced to watch Universal's promotional material after selecting 'Play Movie'.

Myself and others in this thread are trying to voice our concerns in a constructive fashion and see if others share our sentiments. I see no need for your inflamatory statement on the state of my happiness. Kindly keep such comments to yourself.

 

[MarkHastings]

It's possible the deleted scenes were from AVID files, which would mean 4:3.

AVID's have the capability to do 16x9. I wonder if the deleted scenes are open matte?

Also, maybe it's easier to slap in fullframe extras instead of doing them anamorphic widescreen. But that's just a guess.

 

[Mark Kalzer]

I too am dismayed at Universal's, "abuse" of the "Play" function. I was really put off when trying tell my The Mummy Returns to play, instead I got the rock telling me about his new movie. It's totally inappropriate to be throwing ads in where the user does not request them, not on a DVD the user paid money for to use in their own home.

 

[gregstaten]

Regarding the AVID files:

More and more films (especially 2.35 anamorphic) are telecineing their dailies as video anamorphic (16x9 rather than 4x3). That gives them a higher quality picture in the edit room and, at least for 2.35 films, still leaves plenty of room to burn in Keykode, edgecode, audio TC, etc above and below the image.

For example, I have dailies from THE TIME MACHINE at work and they are all video anamorphic.

-greg

 

[TedD]

You guys need to discover TheatreTek or Zoom Player and the wonders of a HTPC.

Ted

 

[Scott Kimball]

I felt that the picture in the film was extremely soft and just murky.

Funny, I thought the picture was quite good. Maybe not equal to LOTR:EE and some other recent releases, but better than others (Spider-man).

I never would have called it "extremely soft and murky."

-Scott