Consumer Friendly (or Disney Hostile) DVD Players?

solli asks: "After 13 years of relatively faithful service my Mitsubishi(!) VCR has finally kicked the bucket, and I am now thinking of moving on to DVDs. One of the only things preventing me from buying a DVD is the fact that some media companies like to make you watch FBI warnings, trailers, and ads before allowing you to view the actual movie (like Disney's Tarzan). Of course, there is such a large demand for region free players and other specialized needs that niche markets have developed to fill that demand. However, I have seen nothing about players that give you the freedom to navigate through the disk the way you want to, instead of how the content producer wants you to. What DVD players exist that let the viewer take full advantage of the nonlinear properties of the DVD media? Can any of the available players ignore the directives embedded on-disk to disable certain controls at particular times?"

Comments

Well

[Quasar1999]

I hate to say it, but a PC is a lot more flexible than a consumer DVD player... I'd go with the PC on this one... I doubt you will find too many DVD players that will allow you to skip the warnings... heck, even on the PC, you have to get hacked software to do it...

Re:Don't Be A Baby.

[Eccles]

Look, the "content producer" spent millions upon millions of dollars so that you can enjoy their content in your home for cheap.

No, they *earned* millions upon millions, because I (and thousands or millions of others) paid for the DVD. IF they start giving away DVDs, then I'll live with the restrictions. I don't go to a bank that gives me a lecture about not robbing them each time I go in, why should I repeatedly view an FBI warning?

Heck, I wanted to freeze the starting menu to see some detail on a DVD I was watching last night, but my Apex wouldn't do it for that section. How the frell is that doing anything for the media company, anyway?

Re:Don't Be A Baby.

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Look, the "content producer" spent millions upon millions of dollars so that you can enjoy their content in your home for cheap.

Oh, yes, I am sure that Disney spent the millions of dollars for the betterment of all humankind, without any thought for the hundreds of millions they'd make from selling the DVD...

The issue isn't really the FBI warning (though I don't like being lectured every time I play a DVD). The point is, Disney and some others put commercials on that track. I wasn't intending to buy a commercial and I shouldn't be forced to watch it.

"Ah-hah!" say the rabid free marketeers. "Disney spent that money on the expectation that you would watch the commercial. Without the added economic benefit of that commercial, they would have had to raise the price to meet the economic expectation of profit. As it is, they count that 'forced eyeball' time as part of the profit, meaning they can sell it for less cash."

Bull dinky. If that's the case, then the commercial is also a cost (to me) and should be disclosed on the box, before I pay for the thing. Otherwise, it's fraud. In other words, there's a difference between "costs $20" and "costs $20 and two minutes of forced commercial viewing". My time is valuable, at least to me, and I shouldn't be bilked out of it.

It's not the 12 seconds. . .

[MyHair]

It's the fact that hardware I *bought* and the DVD I *bought* artificially limits my ability to use the media as designed. And against my will.

Okay, maybe some warnings are 12 seconds, but how long do you think it will be before there are more trailers and even must-watch commercials on DVDs? I've seen commercials on VHS, why not DVD? (Trailers ARE commercials, anyway.)

I like DVD's ability to pause, skip and jump in a random-access fashion (or I should say on-demand fashion).

Two things I HATE and am getting more and more irritated by daily:

1: Services that I pay for are forcing advertising upon me and/or harvesting my "consumer information" and using it against my desires (email spam, junk mail, telemarketing, etc..). Services include telephone service, internet service, cable TV, my grocery store and my credit cards. (For years I refused to get a store card, but now I moved and the only two close grocery stores have store cards; it's pay up, drive far or give in, and I gave in, put I'm pissed off about it and will switch in a second if something better comes by.) I understand some products and services (such as low cost ISP's , adware and broadcast TV) use these tactics to offer a lower-priced option to the consumer. If there's another reasonably-priced option and the terms are disclosed I'm okay with that. I've always paid more than the minimum for my ISP.

2: Products I legitimately buy intrusively warn me, nag me or inconvenience me with things like legal warnings and anti-piracy measures such as CD keys and copy protection. Frankly it's easier to install free (legitimately) or pirated software than it is to find *my* CD key whenever I reinstall.

Books don't have legal warnings beyond the copyright date. Print art has no warnings on it. My furniture and appliances don't warn me that I'll be sued if I use their design to build copies and sell them. Vinyl records didn't have warnings. Cassette tape (prerecorded or blank) didn't have warnings. My CD-R, CD-RW, VHS, VHS-C, 8mm, Betamax, DAT, TR-1, QIC-80, SanDisk, floppy disk and hard disk media didn't come with warnings. The movies in the theater have no warnings. By video and system BIOS don't have warnings. Why do VHS, DVD and software require intrusive and inconvenient warnings?

Re:It's not the 12 seconds. . .

[harlows_monkeys]

It's the fact that hardware I *bought* and the DVD I *bought* artificially limits my ability to use the media as designed.

Uhm...nope. It is using the media exactly as designed. The ability to place those restrictions on the disc is part of the DVD design.

Re:It's not the 12 seconds. . .

[transiit]

It strikes me that there's basically four groups when dealing with these things:
(Listed in order of paranoia, a bit of description for each.)
1) The wide-eyed "Extended Warranty? How can I lose?" group.
Clearly, this is what the grandparent poster was talking about: Complete and total submission.
You get all the benefits of the Ignorance-is-bliss set, at first. As time goes by, it would certainly become harder not to notice that the only phone calls you get are from telemarketers, the only email you receive is spam, and there is so much noise that it won't even be worth looking for signal anymore (aka, the SETI@home project, har har, only joking). You'll have reached the prime consumer level, but that basically just means "easy mark" in the corporations eyes. It might be easier in the short term, but a society of total consumerism would be a mess. Probably best not to go in this far.
2) People that will occasionally go for an advertised bargain/discount club/etc., but do not think much of it. I would say this is the average person out there right now. There isn't much reason not to join a grocery club with the better prices always listed. They'll usually avoid most telemarketers and throw away their junk mail.
3) People that will sign up for said clubs/memberships, but will minimize their exposure. A large portion of the geek crowd lands here. Why not get the benefits of the grocery club, just under the name of J. Edgar Hoover? I signed up for a grocery club under a not-quite-real name, and they've not cancelled my card (as far as I know). They gave me two keyring tags and one card. I gave away the card and a keytag and have traded the remaining keytag a couple times now. Who knows what sort of information has been attached to that original pseudonym by now?
This is a more cautious group, giving out incomplete or outright fictitious information, but a bit more pragmatic than the others.
4) People that won't sign up for anything where they have to give any personal information.
These are the people that either have so little faith in the system that they won't get anywhere near it, or so against it on principle that they won't lessen themselves by it. I admire the idea, but unless something drastic changes, it's extremely difficult to opt-out entirely. It can be done, but you'd probably have to give up many conveniences, like credit cards or checks (they know where you shop), renting a residence (your rental and credit history is duly noted), insuring a car, health insurance (do you smoke? drink? have any prior ailments?), etc. The more extreme of this group lives in small shanties writing manifestos on their manual typewriters.

This isn't meant an an indictment against any of these groups. It's a matter of how much of your life you're willing to give up for others' profit. Until I feel that those controlling the information can be trusted to ethically posess such knowledge, I would advocate that most people should aim to be in one of the latter two groups (against the system by total disassociation, or against the system by misdirection).

-transiit

Here's a thought...

[baximus]

Personally, I follow the following simple steps. 1. Insert DVD into player. Press "PLAY" if disc does not start automatically. 2. Go for a walk. Fetch drink and nibbles from kitchen. Close any windows/curtains to create the correct atmosphere. 3. Retrun to living room. 4. Press "MENU" button, then select "Play Movie". Voila - problem solved. Ad/Warning has been missed, and movie is ready to play. And you've probably got some much needed exercise in the process.

Re:How Lazy do you get?

[Golias]

To me, the solution is obvious. Don't buy "Tarzan"; it's a shitty movie anyway.

Granted, that advice is less helpful whenever Disney releases a good movie, but at least in this case you are good to go.

Re:Apex AD600

[AJWM]

My Apex 600 does something funky with the Stuar Little DVD (I don't remember the details, it has been a while since I (or rather, my kids) last watched it) -- but was easy enough to get it to actually play.

If I remember right, use the "Resume" button on the remote -- and as I type this I seem to remember that's a recommended solution for a few other discs with similar problems. A software glitch in the player firmware, which may well have been fixed in a later version. (Of course, the later firmware versions also disable the easy access to the "secret" menu that lets you disable Macrovision.)

The Apex is a nice little box for the price, perfectly adequate for watching movies on an old 21" (or whatever it is) TV with plain stereo in the playroom. When I move up to a 60" progressive scan wide screen with full 5.1 surround, I'll get a better quality DVD player too.

Re:store cards aren't that big a deal

[hyperturbopete]

Right On...

But isnt that all the more disturbing? The system perpetuates itself even though every human involved knows its full of shit. This can't lead to good things

Get a TYT based player

[Bowdie]

You could try a TYT based player. I use a Scan SC2000. They're pretty good, and (with hacked firmware blown to it) I can press "menu" and skip FBI / Ad / Coming attractions bollocks and go straight to the main menu. Also handy if the menus are swooshy! (like LotR)

Try asking at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Scan2000/

Hope that helps
bowdie

The answer...

[Graf]

Techtronics.com have the Sony DVP-F11 with "User prohibitions Disabled" which means you can skip those annoying adverts on disney dvds and the fbi warning and basically puts you in control of what you're watching. They may have other dvd players with this feature, but this is the one i've got, and a very happy customer I am too.

Graf

Me too... I want a book

[Overzeetop]

Unfortunately, I have a player which obeys the commands of my discs without fail. Pop in a Disney movie (the worst of the lot) and you can't even press "stop." The only way to stop a Disney ad is to "eject" the disc from the player.

Although I don't like the FBI warnings (why not put them at the end, like VHS?) the ads are awful. You _can_ get 10+ minues worth on Disney discs. Luckily, the movies are short and I do intend on re-burning them before my daughter is old enough to watch. No sense in making her sit through the extra ads.

Copyright IP was explained to me when I was a freshman in college, many years ago, like a book. You buy your original. You can make as many backups as you like. You can have them anywhere you like. You can loan them out. BUT - like your physical book, it may only be used in one place at a time.

If I had a book with 50 pages of ads in the front, I'm allowed to rip them out and throw them away. I can rip out the title page, or blacken the copyright notice. It doesn't change what I'm allowed to do, but I don't have to look at it.

My Denon DVD-2800 mostly does the trick

[frambris]

Ok so it's not the cheapest DVD player around but you get what you pay for (component video out, the best deinterlacer on the market and superb sound). On 99% of my discs I'm able to skip the trailers, FBI warnings etc. Some (I can't recollect which) don't work but there the stop-stop-play trick works. I have no problems with the Disney titles I have (both the Toy Stories). Now I'm not sure if it does that by default or if it is the region patch that makes it work. Regionfree is better tho.

No, I bought a copy of a movie. Period.

[DuckDuckBOOM!]

Jeez, where do I start.....

Do people really think that if you pay a measly 18 bucks for a DVD that you own the unlimited usage rights to a $50million movie?

Within the bounds of personal use, YES! The media moguls' belief that their interests trump rights of property and contract dating back to the bloody Magna Carta does not mean those rights no longer exist. When I hand Best Buy $18 and receive a DVD in return, that disc - including the bit patterns pressed into it - is mine to copy (so long as I don't distribute the copies - theft by any reasonable definition,) reformat, edit, rip, play in reverse, or destroy, as pleases me. If the MPAA has a problem with this, it can remedy that in the same manner as does every vendor outside the entertainment industry: with a contract, signed by all interested parties at time of purchase, containing those mutually agreed upon limitations on use that exceed the standards set by common law. Which I may sign, or (more likely) laugh and walk out of the store.
The concept of software, be it computer program or video or whatever, being fundamentally different from any other property is pure fiction created by the Disneys and Microsofts of the world to rationalize their quest for ever-increasing revenue in exchange for ever-decreasing value.

Do you remember how much movies used to cost before DVD? A LOT MORE THAN THEY DO NOW. Why? The advertisements you say you don't want but buy anyway.

"Why?" Because they quickly discovered that nobody would buy movies at $90 a pop, which is what they cost in the early days of home video, and that lots of people would buy them when the price fell to that of a few overnight rentals. As for ads "keeping the cost down", I strongly doubt you will find any significant difference in the price of an ad-saturated/forced disc vs. one with no or isolated trailers.

Because of #1 and #2 you are in a really tough spot because you are too cheap and/or lazy to really do anything but whine.

Speak for yourself, please. I buy, or do not buy, as pleases me...and the quantity and/or obnoxiousness of advertising frequently enters into that decision, as the manager - and about two dozen customers within earshot - of the local Lowes theater found out a couple weeks ago. I got passes for another show, and coincidentally, or perhaps not, that movie didn't have 15 minutes of soft drink and minivan ads preceding it. (I don't mind trailers, in moderation, as they're usually at least nominally entertaining. But that tolerance is also my decision.)

All that being said, I do agree with you that this crap persists and expands solely because people continue to pay for it, and I often have a hard time understanding why they continue to pay for it. Eventually Disneysoft-Warner will go too far even for Joe Average Consumer, and perhaps that'll bring some kind of sane balance to the whole mess. In the meantime I'll keep my own counsel, buy DVDs now and then, and reserve the absolute right to deploy countermeasures as necessary to deal with the more obnoxious & invasive crap the would-be media gods try to lay on me. Blues.

DDB

Re:No, I bought a copy of a movie. Period.

[King_TJ]

Thanks for a teriffic reply! Saved me a lot of trouble writing pretty much the same things.

Just for the record though, I've purchased several DVD players in the last few years, and maybe 15 or so DVD movies. I usually just borrow or rent them.

While it's very disturbing and unfortunate that the motion picture industry has decided to make all these efforts to restrict what we can/can't legally do with a DVD, I don't think that means I'm being a hypocrite for continuing to buy the products while complaining.

I think the technology itself is sound, and stands on its own merits. Simply saying "I don't like the FBI warnings or the trailers, so I'm going to refuse to ever buy a DVD player or disc!" only helps kill off a perfectly good technology. (Does Hollywood really know that people aren't buying DVD because they're upset about those restrictions and trailers/warnings? I suspect, instead, they'd simply conclude that DVD technology wasn't offering enough value for consumers to keep purchasing the format. That would leave us with less ability to buy/rent/view movies at home in higher-resolutions.)

It seems better to me to continue to buy the products we like and want to use. Then, pinpoint the issues we have with them and complain, complain, complain! It may or may not fall on deaf ears, but at least they can't say they never understood the problem.