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

Classfication flags

[fembots]

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.

Parents may be more likely pay a bit more for these "pre-screened" DVDs than using ClearPlay's service - A bite-back from the movie industry?

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.

Re:Classfication flags

[JohnsonWax]

Well, maybe if they're more specific:

skip[sex(male frontal nudity)], play[sex(female frontal nudity)], slow-mo[sex(girl-on-girl)]

I bet lots of people would pay more for those pre-screened DVDs.

Re:Classfication flags

[NanoGator]

"The movie industry is fighting this tooth and nail. Something about destroying the directors vision or some junk. Don't expect DVDs to come with this standard."

Why would that bother them? It would (potentially) mean they can make their vision happen the way they like, and the user can automatically water it down to their tastes. Personally, I don't have a problem with this. If I made a movie that satisfied my vision, and some people wanted to view a worse version of it, fine with me. It beats having to shoe-horn it into a lower rating.

I'm thinking about Robocop right now. The original cut of it earned an X-Rating for violence. They had to cut scenes out to get it down to R. They made the X-Rated version available on DVD. I watched it, and I couldn't believe what altering it did to some of the scenes. In one case, it actually made a scene a lot scarier. Remember when ED-209 blew away an executive? In the theatrical version, it basically opened fire on him and stopped when he died. It looked very cold-blooded. In the original version, it opened fire and blew the guy onto a table. It then kept firing over and over and over and over again. Despite all the blood spraying into the air, it was actually kind of funny. Stupid thing just kept on firing even though dude was dead. But... the blood. That scene had to go. What was once a humurous scene showing an insanely bad bug (Microsoft, anyone?) turned into a depiction of an evil robot.

I would imagine that Paul Verhoeven would have much preferred to have been able to release one DVD with user controlled settings.

Re:Classfication flags

[Queer Boy]

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.

Yeah, strangely that was a big selling point for DVDs from the manufacturers and the studios. Also, why the FUCK can't I watch a DVD that has deleted scenes in it in place where they were deleted, I mean, it's a computer function at that point. That was another big selling point for DVDs early on.

Oh, well. At least the sound and picture is better.

Re:Classfication flags

[cei]

You'd be surprised, actually. The branching on the Alien Quadrilogy and The Incredibles was flawless. What's that, you say? No branching on The Incredbiles you say? Try watching it in another language and check out the opening sequence (or just about any scene that had text in-picture). You'll see a different title number listed, but you can bet they didn't encode the full movie twice on the same disc. Same goes for any of the Alien movies for Director vs Theatrical.

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

[zakezuke]

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 could live with previews once. I like previews for the most part esp thoughtful ones that might be similar to or catch the interest of someone who bought a given DVD. But if I rewatch a DVD I bought I don't want to wait no 5min to play the bloody flick.

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

[Lord Kano]

DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink are a fantastic combination. If you are just going to be playing the disc in your computer, you can use DVD Idle Pro to remove the Prohibited User Operations.

LK

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.

Not intended like you suggest

[mr100percent]

People should be allowed to use technology to watch movies "their way" in their own home

Well, that's a nice sentiment, but the bill (the Family Movie Act of 2005) appears to mainly be aimed at allowing your DVD to skip past nude scenes and the like. A number of family and conservative groups supported this measure. Perhaps they're also annoyed at being forced to watch the previews that some DVDs force people to play through as well.

While I think it's a step in the right direction, Congress isn't going to do away with region coding, CSS, and the like. Look at the other bill in the link, the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, also noted in an earlier /. article. I suspect Orrin Hatch would support this bill, but I don't think he'll go for less copy protection. Does anyone know if he voted on this bill and how?

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:Not intended like you suggest

[oneiros27]

Someone'll just figure out a way for it to do the exact opposite of what the censor intended. Sort of like Jeff, in Coupling, where he was explaining the difficulty in following the plot in porn videos:

Well, it's kind of hard to tell isn't it 'cos you tend to fast forward if anyone's dressed. Sometimes I forget and do that with proper films. I can get through a lot of movies in an evening

You mean like

[qurk]

I spent a $100 premium on shipping and on the esoteric faster over what guys in Japan would have to pay, now that I have it because I bought it..... Can I actually put it in my DVD player and push play and watch it? Yes I know I am outside of that region. I payed a premium to be able to have it in hands. Can I watch it? Or do I need to buy another DVD player just to not circumvent the laws. What the hell.

Re:You mean like

[loupgarou21]

You can circumvent the region coding on a lot of DVD players, a quick search on google should provide you with a lot of information on it. And don't bother using any of the services that require you to pay for the information, just look around, you'll find it for free.

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.

Re:Government.

[vyrus128]

(-1 Libertarian)

The government has to get involved in permitting stuff like this because they previously MADE IT ILLEGAL with the DMCA. The market isn't likely to help with that.

Re:Government.

[arodland]

Government, on the other hand, excels at creating and supporting them! :)

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.

technology

[Arctic Dragon]

"People should be allowed to use technology to watch movies "their way" in their own home, he said."

It would be nice if they would apply a similar that would apply to music. Keep DRM and other restrictions out of movies and music!

This doesn't mean they can make the DVD players.

[VidEdit]

Although it may be legal to create a DVD player that can be programed to skip sections, that doesn't mean that the industry has to license CSS to a maker who wants to do this in the future.

Under the new proposed HD DVD standard, any player manufacturer's key can be rescinded for future HD DVD releases, so DRM may prevent the ability to enable would-be bowdlerizers from implementing their schemes.

Dupe..

[StikyPad]

This is the same "Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005" that was just-as-in-still-on-the-front-page posted in the story about jail time for sharing pre-publication copyrighted works.

The jail time was tacked onto the bill, and of course nobody's going to vote against parental control over DVDs, right?

Won't somebody think of the children!?!

The same tactic that got the bill through Congress got the story posted under a completely different subject on the front page.

Unskippable Trailers and Ads suck...

[Anonymous Coward]

Raise your hand if you've ever bought or rented DVD with 10+ minutes of unskippable trailers and/or ads at the beginning. It's apparently something they started doing on various new releases, and it pissed me off so much that I stopped renting new releases altogether. I don't bother renting anything made after ~2002 anymore because I got one-too-many that tried to force me to watch a bunch of BS at the beginning (it didn't work -- I took the movies back and traded them in for old releases).

Imagine the pain when you have to watch a movie in two or three sittings (due to time constraints), and every time you start the movie back up you have to sit through the same goddamn 15 minutes of ads...

Anyone want to compose a list of new releases to avoid because of unskippable trailers. Here are the two that my family got burned with:

Stepford Wives (the new one)
Shrek II

Anyone have recommendations for new release rentals that *don't* have unskippable trailers? I kinda want to see Hero and House of Hidden Daggers. Anyone know if they have unskippable trailers?

Re:Unskippable Trailers and Ads suck...

[TealShark]

I think this whole sway toward unskippable ads/promos/trailers at the top of a DVD is the reason I just can't bring myself to replace my old Afreey (rebadged Sampo) DVD player I bought years ago.

Thanks to a firmware hacking project for old Sampo players, I've been able to re-flash it to allow me simply to press Menu or Skip-> to go right from the warning at the top of the Parade of Annoyance to the DVD's main menu.

There really shouldn't be any reason this should not be allowed in all DVD players. Back in the days of VHS, we had a wicked button called FFW to make the bad things go away; last I checked, it didn't kill the video rental business.

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.

Why was it needed?

[Rufus88]

aimed at allowing your DVD to skip past nude scenes and the like.

Before the bill, what exactly was prohibiting DVD players from doing this?

Re:Why was it needed?

[MC68000]

Nothing. It is referring to a company called ClearPlay that resold DVDs at a substancial markup after having scrubbed them of non-family-friendly content. The bill just passed makes this practice legal, which is necessary because Hollywood groups are suing ClearPlay.

Re:Why was it needed?

[mr100percent]

Nothing was prohibiting the players, but Clearplay the company had wrote a program to skip over non-family friendly scenes. The movie industry was aghast, saying it was against the director's wishes, the vision of the film, and a violation of copyright. This new law allows them to legally strip videos without breaking copyright.

Re:Why was it needed?

[canavan]

Nothing was prohibiting the players

No law was stopping players to ignore User Operation Prohibitions, but the DVDCA's licensing. You can't build a licensed DVD player that allows the user to skip over 'unskippable' content, turn off 'mandatory' subtitles or other annoyances, much in the same way region coding or macrovision copy protection on the analog signals for css encoded discs are required.

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.

Because.

[Lapsed Catholic]

The Directors Guild of America sued ClearPlay in federal court in Colorado alleging copyright violations. Basically the argument was that ClearPlay was creating a derivative work (actually 2^N - 1 derivative works) by placing markers throughout a movie denoting skippable scenes containing sex or violence. This provision was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) to specifically exempt such marking from being considered a derivative work for purposes of copyright law.

I'd like to think this is an instance of enlightenment in regard to our ridiculous copyright law, but I think it's just a coincidence that this is a reasonable provision. I wouldn't hold my breath expecting something like this for commercials. The culture war- specifically hatred of Hollywood- probably had more to do with this law. Color me cynical, but I suspect it may be a gift to ClearPlay as well, who will be especially well positioned after this. Once the bill is signed into law, the suit against them will be dismissed.

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.

Same Bill as Last YRO Story

[peachpuff]

link from the article.

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.

Re:Won't work that way

[toren]

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.

Not that it's a solution to the underlying problem, but you should check out amazon.ca for French movies. They have a sizeable selection of French-only stuff, and Canadian DVDs are region-1, just like the US. They're also NTSC, so your TV and DVD player should handle them too.

ReplayTV's Comercial Advance...

[boopus]

No one seems to have pointed out that this seems to explicitly legalize Comercial Advance. ReplayTV gave up and stopped skipping comercials automatically as a compromise with the media industry. Hopefully they'll put it back in again.