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Wouldn't You Like Standardized Defaults/Menus on DVD's? (1 Viewer)

Brenton

Screenwriter
Joined
Jun 25, 2002
Messages
1,169
I don't like on Spy Kids 2, whenever you select something from the menu and press enter, you are treating to a video clip of some skeletons clapping. Wow.
 

William Waits

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Apr 25, 2002
Messages
178


Then you obviously haven't looked at Spirit. The Absolute WORST in readability.

The only thing that I want standard is for the menu selector to automatically have "Play Movie" (or whatever variation) automatically selected. There are a few Universal Land Before Time discs, along with a few Disney discs that DON'T.

Next, it is staight up authoring, but another "standard" should be that there needs are be no forced trailers (HIT and Discovery Channel DVDs do that, and it is REALLY annoying. Also, with Discovery Channel, you can't even speed up the "program" during this interlude, much less skip it), and TV DVDs with mulitple episodes needs to have a "Play All" feature (Mash in particular, but there are others...)
 

Randy A Salas

Screenwriter
Joined
Apr 25, 2002
Messages
1,348
My 80+ Dad has failing hearing and loves the subtitle feature on most all dvds.

What he hates is trying to figure out how to navigate the menus in order to find the subtitle options.
Spend $89 and buy him a DVD player that allows him to choose "English subtitles on" as a default. Then he wouldn't have to worry about it. Father's Day is coming up.
 

William Waits

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Apr 25, 2002
Messages
178


First of all, it is on white lettering. Next, the selected menu selection has a white halo around it about 1 or 2 pixels worth above the on screen text, and the highlight itself is also white, and very thin as well. Finally, all this is done on a VERY bright canvas of a background shot from the moive that including a very bright light blue sky. Absolutely the WORST at readability!
 

Qui-Gon John

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2000
Messages
3,532
Real Name
John Co
However, what often irks me is the packaging. I hate hunting for information like the year of theatrical release, length, audio tracks, aspect ratio, or whether or not the transfer is anamorphic. Most releases have these, but even the same studio changes how this information is conveyed from release to release. If all publishers and studios would get together and agree on the same format it would be wonderful.
Terry, YES, you hit on another one. Sometimes I can not even find the Running Time of the movie. Not to mention there are more than a handfull that are not labeled as Anamorphic or Enhanced for 16x9 TV's, yet are. The industry needs a Standardized Features Grdi, where the first several fields are standard, (let's say on the left hand side of the grid, then the right hand side they can list other features like, trailers, featurettes, deleted scenes, etc. The standard fields should be:

Format: Widescreen, Full Frame, Open Matte, Pan & Scan
Anamorphic: Yes, No, N/A
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1, 1.85:1, 1.78:1, 1.33:1
Running Time:
Year Film Released:
Year This DVD Released:
 

Charlie Essmeier

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Mar 7, 1999
Messages
139
Here's what I'd like to see:

1. Configure your player for your preferences (DTS, DD, 16:9, etc.)
2. Put in the disc, and hit "Play." The movie plays automatically, according to your configuration.
3. Configuration changes or supplements are accessed by pressing "menu" at any time.

If you have no desire to see supplements, or if you don't need to change anything, you never have to look at a menu.

You just watch the movie.

Many years of laserdisc has spoiled me. I just can't get used to DVD's "let's make it as difficult to use as possible" concept.

Press "play." Watch the movie.

Duh!

Charlie
 

KerryK

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Mar 3, 2003
Messages
214
John, if you want to know what year the DVD was released, look at the artwork copyright date. The film copyright date is the year the film was released.
 

Tom Tsai

Supporting Actor
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Messages
565


Apparently, I have heard people either fall asleep to movies in the background or fall asleep during a movie ( :confused: ). Most of the time, if the movie is done playing, it'll jump back to the main menu. If this goes on for the whole night, it can possibly cause burn-in problems with static menus for some people. I believe this way it'll prevent that from happening no?
 

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