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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?"
The Warning message isn't that long. Just pick up your copy of Reader's Digest or something and browse through it while you're waiting. Actually, you probably won't have time for even that. Use the time to microwave popcorn. Or even just spend the time in reflective silence.
:)
It won't hurt you to have to wait 30 seconds. If you have your schedule so tight that you can't even spend an extra 30 seconds, then you should force yourself to sit down and waste some time. You need it
-Brent
... what the deal is with region coding? I have never understood why the MPAA thinks it is so important to prevent me from viewing japanese or european DVD's. Why do they give a rat's ass?
I suppose it must, somehow, be a way of protecting their profits. But how? It's not like they make more money if I go buy a second, japanese DVD player so I can play japanese DVDs -- Sony or someone makes the extra dough, not hollywood.
All it means is that if I'm travelling overseas I can't pick up discs of local films and have any expectation of watching them when I get home. And I can't buy and watch discs of foreign-local films over the internet; if there's no US release I'm screwed and can't watch the movie. This means.... wait for it.... fewer discs sold. Sooo... how does this make sense?
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
IFOEDIT has a built-in software player. It's pretty basic, but it gets the job done.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.