More Freedom for DVD Players?

weopenlatest writes "According to this Wired article, the House just passed a bill allowing DVD players to skip through programming. While the article stressed using this ability for parental controls, it would seem like it would also apply to annoying previews and ads that load automatically. Could this be a step in the right direction towards uncrippled DVD players?"

Comments

Makes sense

[Coopjust]

I can understand the FBI warning, but I don't pay $20 for a DVD to watch ads for movies that are crappy/have no interest in

Re:Makes sense

[Guspaz]

This could be solved by flash memory in DVD players. Simply store the DVD's unique ID, and if the previews have already been watched. The cost would be insignificant; 4MB of flash memory could store the information for a nearly a quarter million DVDs. I doubt there are even that many DVDs on the market.
Heck, 1MB would probably be enough. How much does 1MB of flash memory cost these days? Probably not enough to significantly raise the cost of the DVD player.

Personally I'd go a more flexible route; use 4MB of flash memory, and a rudimentary file system. Then allow a flexible amount of information to be stored per record. This could be used in new and very interesting ways. You can store a LOT of settings in half a dozen bytes.

Re:Makes sense

[Zemran]

I can understand the FBI warning,

Then it is likely that you live in the US, but most of us in the rest of the world cannot understand why we have to wait for an irrelevant piece of foreign infomation to finish. Even worse though is when they do the international bit and force us to watch 8 irrelevant bits of information and maybe get the right one for our country included. It is all rubbish, we know it, we have read it before and having to sit through it each time we watch a DVD does not make us know any more about it.

Re:Makes sense

[Creedo]

Bull. It is a product. The moment they release that product, I can view it however I like. I can turn my TV upside down, I can watch it through a blue lens, I can fast forward through all of the boring bits.
Are you really suggesting that some author has the "moral right" to force me to not use the fast forward button?

Now imagine that some web browser was programmed to leave out certain words in your site, changing the message you are delivering.
I can do that now with a printout and a Sharpie. The fact is, if someone is going to filter your content, there is nothing you can do about it, short of not putting it out there.

Re:Makes sense

[cpt kangarooski]

Unfortunately for your selfish demands, content authors *do* have a moral right to control how their work is displayed or performed.

No they do not. Such a position is utterly irreconcilable with the right of free speech, which has a more solid foundation. Moral rights are bullshit.

Imagine you had a political website. Now imagine that some web browser was programmed to leave out certain words in your site, changing the message you are delivering. Would you be happy with that situation? I don't think so. But suddenly it is okay if it's someone *else's* expression that is being misrepresented, just because it's more convenient for you?

Both are okay. Someone reading only every other word in something I say doesn't harm me. And since I may wish to do the same, I'm stuck having to let others do so too. It's kind of like how someone who truly believes in free speech will defend the right of others to say what they like, no matter how much they disagree with it. The people who only want non-objectionable things to be said are tyrants.

Plus, why do you think there is misrepresentation here? Generally, if you're looking at an edited version of something, it's not just obvious, but you've likely sought it out.

I for one can't wait for people to release EDLs that remove Jar-Jar from the Star Wars movies, or that skip the boring parts of action flicks so that they're all chase scenes, gunfights, and explosions.

Government.

[EverStoned]

WHY is the government involved in this? I honestly can't think of a single reason why government intervention is better than letting the market sort all this out.

Re:Government.

[Mark_MF-WN]

Because the market is incapable of sorting out monopolies/oligopolies, cartels, and the other techniques used by immoral businesses to gouge customers.

Parent Is A Verb Too

[Horrortaxi]

Maybe parents could go the low tech way and just monitor their children and use the word "no" once in a while? No, god forbid they have to spend time with the little bastards.

Re:Parent Is A Verb Too

[Lisandro]

It's sad the parent poster was modded overrated. His point can't be stressed enough - if people beleive kids will be better because you can choose if they can see or not 10 minutes of tits in a movie, we're in bad shape. Never mind watching titties might actually be good to them; can't you simply watch over their actions a bit?

No matter what, you just can't shield your kids in a bubble and think that's all there is to it. Teaching them right and wrong and (god forbid!) paying atention to their actions is what parenting's all about.

Re:Not intended like you suggest

[swschrad]

the only way this congress is going to give you the ability to watch the way you want (not the way they want, or the movie companies want) is if you pony up and outbid them for the congresscritters' attention.

this is truly the best government that money can buy.

Re:Classfication flags

[mr_zorg]

Will we be seeing movies with built-in flags, so that parents only need to configure the player to skip [sex(base 1/2/3/4)], [violance(blood 1/2/3/4)] etc, it'll be similar to the rating/parental card on cable TVs except with better, more specific control over the content.

DVDs already have parental controls including the ability to seamlessly branch content. If the studios were so inclined, they could provide movies now that seamlessly scale down from an R rating to PG-13, etc.. But they don't. So, in short, no, I doubt they'll be doing what you suggest.

It is a sad day....

[EmbeddedJanitor]

... that the state in a "free country" is debating what order you may watch video material and whether or not you may skip watching stuff.

Geez

[ScrewMaster]

You know, it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly.

Re:The ethics of ads-skipping

[pete6677]

That's bullshit, a DVD is something you pay for so that you don't have to watch ads. The price is set according to how much people are willing to pay, not how much the company can make on ads. What if HBO started interrupting movies with ads and said it was in place of a rate increase? I doubt that would go over very well since the main appeal of HBO is the lack of ads. When an ad is shown anyplace, there is never a guarantee that it will be watched attentively by every potential viewer, only that it will be put in a place where people CAN see it, so ad blocking is not unethical by any means.

This SPECIFICALLY has to do with ClearPlay...

[barfy]

And has NOTHING to do with not being able to skip through the ads.

ClearPlay has nothing to with DVD Consortium edicts, and has to do with the wishes of the creators of the copywritten material.

The no skip feature of the pre-menu stuff is a feature that makes a DVD player a DVD player. You cannot implement without it and have license from the DVD Consortium.

These are two entirely different things, and the law only deals with one of them.

Won't work that way

[John Seminal]

I can understand the FBI warning, but I don't pay $20 for a DVD to watch ads for movies that are crappy/have no interest in

I don't think this law is going to help you much

The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (HR357) also would permit technologies that allow users to skip objectionable content in movies viewed at home.

I believe this act will be used by studios to make PG versions of their R rated movies. It will take out nudity and explicit language. They will do to movies what happened to music in the 90's. You will have a PG Eazy-E and an explicit one. I just wonder how many people will accidently buy the PG version, open it, realise what they did, try and take it back and be told they are stuck with the bad purchase.

I HATE the previews on DVD's that can not be skipped over. I preffer previews to be on a DVD in a "bonus" section. If the preview is forced on me, I get very frustrated, I have zero interest in what I am watching. If the preview is a bonus, then when I finish the movie, if I want to, I'll look at the trailers to see what else is out there. I find that a pleasurable experiance.

The worst offenders are Universal, that has a montage of thier past movies that can't be skipped over. I don't want to see 5 seconds of Jurastic park followed by 5 seconds of Nutty Professor, and so on, and so on, and so on. I hate that!

But since when do entertainment studios care what customers think. I believe it will get MUCH, MUCH worse. I believe the studio's will add commercials to DVD's that can't be skipped, just like the commericals in movie theaters. If Ford offers a dime for evey DVD with their Pick-up Truck commercial, and a studio expects to sell 30 million DVD's, that is $3,000,000 the studio makes for that one commercial. How do we combat profit?

I hate to say it, but I feel like people will start buying DVD players from Hong Kong that are region free (and can be set to a region too), and movies from websites located outside of the USA. There will be a market.

I'll give one more example of how the USA is going to force people to buy elsewhere. I purchased a $2000 laptop with a DVD drive. I am studying a foriegn language, and purchased movies from amazon.fr to help learn listening to the language. If I set my DVD drive to region 2 to watch a French movie, then later back to region 1 to watch an USA movie, one I do that 5 times my DVD locks so I can't change the region on it. WHY? The movies I am buying from France are not even available in the USA.