[Duggy747]

At least with VHS you could fast forward through that stuff

Silly move for nothing more than appearances that something is being done to combat piracy effectively.

[Sleepy]

With the quality of the broadband on offer these days, you can almost download a HD copy of a movie directly to your media pc as quickly as it'd take you to get off the couch, locate the BR/DVD, insert it into the player and wade through all the crap before the movie starts.

You're getting "better than free" wrong people...

[kitakyushu]

Originally Posted by Sad Professor

This won't affect Region B Blu-rays, but it raises a point which often come up: the way that paying customers are made to suffer for purchasing legally.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...ment-warnings/

Full details in the link above, but basically all US DVDs and Blu-rays will now have two unskippable copyright warnings lasting 10 seconds each at the start of each film. The warnings will come up AFTER you select play from the main menu, i.e. just before the studio logos and rating. So they are in addition to whatever unskippable crap you already have to sit through after inserting the disc.

Whilst completely not in favour of it it might even become a mini event in itself if the warning was useless enough eg like this guy back in the VHS days...



OT, interestingly if there is a really bad lock on a DVD/BD you can often get round it by selecting chapter2 from the menu and then backchaptering to the beginning of the movie (I remember many of my X-Files DVDs had locked warnings before each episode so I just got round them that way). Would certainly take less than 20 seconds if you're stuck anyway.

Speaking of skipping stuff doesn't it vary from player to player sometimes whether unwanted blocks get presented or not presented. It might just happen that new BD players will have the sense (like VLC player) to just skip stuff like this.

[I Kill You Scum!]

Nothing worse than paying for a movie and being forced to watch unskippable crap and trailers/ads. Especially on Buray because the damn things take so long to load up with all the java sh1t and protection.

I have a decent-sized DVD and Bluray collection so im not one of these people who downloads everything and never buys things, but this stuff genuinely puts me off buying Blurays and has cost them quite a few sales over the years.

[Sad Professor]

Just to be clear, this only applies to US DVDs and Blu-rays. UK/Irish discs will be unaffected... for now.

It should also be noted that legal downloads don't have any of the long delays associated with Blu-ray. Or at least iTunes movies don't. You press play and the film starts instantly. So the "torrents are more convenient than Blu-ray" argument doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny. I agree with CL7 that pirates don't need much encouragement.

Early Blu-rays were terrible for forcing you to watch previews and taking forever to get to the film. Newer ones, I notice, start much quicker, often skipping the menu completely. There seems to be less BD-Java crap these days as well. The Gladiator Blu-ray is completely bogged down with it.

[kitakyushu]

Originally Posted by Sad Professor

Just to be clear, this only applies to US DVDs and Blu-rays. UK/Irish discs will be unaffected... for now.

It should also be noted that legal downloads don't have any of the long delays associated with Blu-ray. Or at least iTunes movies don't. You press play and the film starts instantly. So the "torrents are more convenient than Blu-ray" argument doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny. I agree with CL7 that pirates don't need much encouragement.

Early Blu-rays were terrible for forcing you to watch previews and taking forever to get to the film. Newer ones, I notice, start much quicker, often skipping the menu completely. There seems to be less BD-Java crap these days as well. The Gladiator Blu-ray is completely bogged down with it.

I've bought some 'region free' BD's from Amazon etc that clearly have an American vibe to them (eg it's playing at the correct american frame rate of 24fps rather than the converted 25fps and more tellingly it'll have MPAA ratings at the start that are of no concern to a European. I think pretty much any Warner Brothers BD I've got this is the case.

Could those type be effected in future even those they're strictly not US region? I ask because I can only imagine I've bought the same disk that people in America are buying.

[Sleepy]

Originally Posted by Sad Professor

Just to be clear, this only applies to US DVDs and Blu-rays. UK/Irish discs will be unaffected... for now.

It should also be noted that legal downloads don't have any of the long delays associated with Blu-ray. Or at least iTunes movies don't. You press play and the film starts instantly. So the "torrents are more convenient than Blu-ray" argument doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny. I agree with CL7 that pirates don't need much encouragement.

Early Blu-rays were terrible for forcing you to watch previews and taking forever to get to the film. Newer ones, I notice, start much quicker, often skipping the menu completely. There seems to be less BD-Java crap these days as well. The Gladiator Blu-ray is completely bogged down with it.

That's the thing: the stick is the wrong tool here. It doesn't hurt studios one bit if someone who'd never have even considered paying for the content torrent it. The market consists of those who are prepared to pay for content so you need to find a way to encourage them to do so: i.e. make sure what you're selling is better than what they can get for free via good extras, higher quality (in the case of Bluray), nice packaging etc.

IMO, some form of loyalty system (e.g. buy 10 BR's get a voucher for an 11th free or collect points to redeem against merchandise, preview screenings etc.) could work very well for the studios if they looked at this the right way: when dealing with their potential customers they need to use the carrot, not the stick. Sure, go after those creating the torrents or pirating the discs commercially but beating viewers around the head with warnings, DRM etc. is clearly failing them badly.

[Sad Professor]

Originally Posted by kitakyushu

I've bought some 'region free' BD's from Amazon etc that clearly have an American vibe to them (eg it's playing at the correct american frame rate of 24fps rather than the converted 25fps and more tellingly it'll have MPAA ratings at the start that are of no concern to a European. I think pretty much any Warner Brothers BD I've got this is the case.

Could those type be effected in future even those they're strictly not US region? I ask because I can only imagine I've bought the same disk that people in America are buying.

Actually all Blu-rays of films generally play at 60p or (if you tv supports it) 24p now, regardless of region. 50hz/25fps and the associated PAL speed-up is mostly a distant memory - and thank god too because I hated it!

But yeah, I've come across a few UK Blu-rays that looked like the distributor just released the same identical American disc. Se7en, for example. This is precisely due to the reason I mentioned above - they don't have to make separate PAL transfers of the film anymore, which means that when the distributor is the same we usually get the exact same transfer and extras as the US.

So you're right, this could potentially end up affecting us as well. However, I'd imagine most distributors will disable it on non-US players.

[Technocentral]

Doesn't bother me in the slightest, I just put the disc in then go and stick the kettle on, go for a slash or get a beer from the fridge,(just like when ads are on the telly) people are hilariously impatient nowadays.

[Sad Professor]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

That's the thing: the stick is the wrong tool here. It doesn't hurt studios one bit if someone who'd never have even considered paying for the content torrent it. The market consists of those who are prepared to pay for content so you need to find a way to encourage them to do so: i.e. make sure what you're selling is better than what they can get for free via good extras, higher quality (in the case of Bluray), nice packaging etc.

IMO, some form of loyalty system (e.g. buy 10 BR's get a voucher for an 11th free or collect points to redeem against merchandise, preview screenings etc.) could work very well for the studios if they looked at this the right way: when dealing with their potential customers they need to use the carrot, not the stick. Sure, go after those creating the torrents or pirating the discs commercially but beating viewers around the head with warnings, DRM etc. is clearly failing them badly.

Even just making Blu-ray a more user-friendly experience would be a start. Nobody cares about fancy Java menus, they just want to watch the film. They also need to make legal downloads cheaper and more appealing. And DRM is a disaster altogether. I really don't know what it's supposed to achieve except discouraging people from buying legal downloads. I actually think this suits the studios at the moment because they'd rather people buy Blu-ray, which means DRM probably isn't going anywhere until Blu-ray is gone.

Originally Posted by Technocentral

Doesn't bother me in the slightest, I just put the disc in then go and stick the kettle on, go for a slash or get a beer from the fridge,(just like when ads are on the telly) people are hilariously impatient nowadays.

These warning don't appear when you insert the disc though. The are just before the film starts.

So: insert the disc, go put the kettle on, come back when the menu has loaded, press play, go back, make your tea, get delayed, you've missed the first minute of the film, press rewind, etc, etc.

[Technocentral]

Originally Posted by Sad Professor

Even just making Blu-ray a more user-friendly experience would be a start. Nobody cares about fancy Java menus, they just want to watch the film. They also need to make legal downloads cheaper and more appealing. And DRM is a disaster altogether. I really don't know what it's supposed to achieve except discouraging people from buying legal downloads. I actually think this suits the studios at the moment because they'd rather people buy Blu-ray, which means DRM probably isn't going anywhere until Blu-ray is gone.


These warning don't appear when you insert the disc though. The are just before the film starts.

So: insert the disc, go put the kettle on, come back when the menu has loaded, press play, go back, make your tea, get delayed, you've missed the first minute of the film, press rewind, etc, etc.

Well that is a bit silly, still, I'm fairly patient, 10 or 20 secs out of 2hrs or so doesn't really bother me.

[kitakyushu]

Originally Posted by Sad Professor

Even just making Blu-ray a more user-friendly experience would be a start. Nobody cares about fancy Java menus, they just want to watch the film.

This is true also in many regards. For instance I think Picture In Picture docs and PIP commentaries are absolutely useless and painful to operate. I don't want to spend 150mins watching a movie just so I can get maybe 30mins of badly edited clips that don't really tell you much and visually appear to take up about 1/10th of the screen. Is society really becoming so ADD that they have to watch two different pictures at once anyway? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Universal BD titles seem to be the biggest culprit when it comes to including crappy PIP extras.

WRT to extras every DVD should have an option to just "play all" and any inline text/bubble features like "trivia subtitle tracks" etc should be just downright banned. I like to try watch everything on my DVD's but I've a few titles I'll never complete mainly because it would mean sitting through the movie itself solely to get at the special features. Waste of time.

[Sad Professor]

Yeah, I've always hated in-film/PIP extras and never bothered with them. That feature was a flop on DVD and few films took advantage of it, so I'm surprised they're wasting everyones time with it again.

And the lack of a "play all" button on some Blu-rays is infuriating. There must be about 3 hours worth of extras on the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Blu-ray and they are excellent, some of the most insightfully behind-the-scenes material I've ever seen. But they are all broken into short 10 minute segments and there's no "play all" option so you have to constantly navigate between confusing menus. Grrrrr!

[Rabidlamb]

Kids talked me into buying a Handy Manny DVD over the Christmas.
Imagine my delight when we had to sit through 3 unskippable coming soon Disney trailers.
Then there was some other crap & the warning saying it's illegal to play on oil rigs, then eventually the main menu.
Daddy visited megaupload that night, got rest it's illegal banned soul.

[the purple tin]

If the film companies put their money where their mouths are they would have anti-piracy ads on TV and in newspapers/magazines etc.

Of course that would mean actually spending money and they would rather stick them on your disc which doesn't cost them a penny.