DVDs and Blu-rays will now carry two unskippable government warnings

[Dougofthenorth]

Lets not forget the advertisements that are also found on many discs which usually follow 5 or so trailers before getting to the menu.

And what is with the minute long promo of the Blue Ray Experience on some of the BD discs??? Don't the idiots know we are watching the material on Blue Ray !!!


EOne is the worst offender in Canada. I groan when I see the movie is produced/distributed by them.

I honestly believe the media industry is purposely ramming down our throats all kind of irritating things to get to their ultimate goal - which is to move everything media related to the net.
The net allows for ultimate control over the content & the user.
Selling bandwidth & control of the user experience is now where the profits now lie. Sony is one of the worst of the offenders with its Nazi-like policies.

If you trace the terms of the contracting to Linn to develop the Blu-Ray disc & see what was originaly called for with regards to embedded tech in the hardware & what that would have meant to the user, then also review the pressured push by Sony on the MPAA & governments with regards to embedded DRM restrictions on the discs, then you can clearly see the agenda's direction.

Both of the above techs are in place now, but the activating "flags" aren't encoded on the BD discs yet

[brown]

Hey government! I BOUGHT the disc, I did not download it therefore I know piracy is bad. Let me say that again, I BOUGHT the disc. BOUGHT!

[classicsat]

But you never outright but the movie, just a limited use license.

[rfielder]

I think Brown's point is valid - they are punishing those who pay for the movies, not those who pirate the movie!

[Neild]

Originally Posted by eljay

Twenty whole seconds of warnings is definitely annoying, but ultimately it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of good movies on BD.

I think this misses the entire point. If you are OK with 20 seconds then how about 20 minutes? 10 minutes? 30 seconds?

When something is wrong, it's wrong, regardless of each person's personal threshold of how much duration they can tolerate.

[eljay]

I think this misses the entire point. If you are OK with 20 seconds then how about 20 minutes? 10 minutes? 30 seconds?

When something is wrong, it's wrong, regardless of each person's personal threshold of how much duration they can tolerate.

I don't think it misses the point at all. Two warnings, each of a reasonable length, are placed at the start of a BD. They don't interrupt the movie once it has started, they don't prevent me from watching the movie and they don't degrade either the video or the audio quality of the presentation. If they did any of those things, I would agree that they were wrong. But they don't, so I won't.

[Blackloz]

Agreed. When I put the BD in all I want is for it to go straight to the movie menu. No previews, no warnings.

[Neild]

Originally Posted by eljay

I don't think it misses the point at all. Two warnings, each of a reasonable length, are placed at the start of a BD. They don't interrupt the movie once it has started, they don't prevent me from watching the movie and they don't degrade either the video or the audio quality of the presentation. If they did any of those things, I would agree that they were wrong. But they don't, so I won't.

Well you sort of shot your own argument down. BD discs have a limited capacity, and warning videos do consume some of it. What's left over determines the bit rate and formats for audio and video, so technically they do degrade the picture and sound.

They also prohibit skipping which does interrupt the movie.

Besides those misunderstandings, the point bring made is that there's no consensus on what constitutes 'reasonable'. Previously 1 was 'reasonable', then someone had the bright idea to make it 2 screens rather than 1 bilingual. Then another screen was added, and 10 seconds becomes 20 becomes 40.

I reiterate that doing something stupid, pointless, and wrong is still wrong, pointless, and stupid, even if it's only being done for some arbitrary 'reasonable' time period.

I also propose a solution where these be placed at the end so that you and other fans of warning screens can enjoy them without degrading the experience for everyone else.

I'd be curious to hearing your explanation of how you believe these screens are effective and prevent piracy.

[audacity]

Originally Posted by Neild

BD discs have a limited capacity, and warning videos do consume some of it. What's left over determines the bit rate and formats for audio and video, so technically they do degrade the picture and sound.

Not if the feature video on the Blu-ray is already encoded in the highest bitrate video/audio that the format supports. There is a quality ceiling for Blu-ray videos that is dictated by the spec. If you doubled the capacity of a Blu-ray and magically enabled existing players to be able to read it, all you could do is increase the maximum length of content that the Blu-ray supports.

Everything else Neild said is bang-on though.

Imagine how pissed off you would be if you got into your car and insert a CD into the CD player and before you could hear the music you needed to listen to a un-skippable track of someone reading out a license agreement to you. And it happened every time you change CDs.

Now imagine after the warnings that CDs automatically tried to play advertisements for other CDs being "released soon" before it plays track 1.

Yup, that would be terrible. And it's the lack of that crap which adds to the attractiveness of services like Netflix.

[ScaryBob]

The warnings and videos don't bother me as much as the fact that it's impossible to skip or fast forward through many of them. For people who watch a lot of movies, how many hours will that add up to in a lifetime? After being seen a few times, everyone knows what's in the warnings and what they are about. Forcing people to sit through them, every time every disc is played, is punitive to people who have purchased legitimate copies of the disc. No other industry indulges in such practices.

[Dougofthenorth]

RE: "I also propose a solution where these be placed at the end so that you and other fans of warning screens can enjoy them without degrading the experience for everyone else."

Or even better - at the main menu have a submenu titled "Annoyances"
Where all ads & ect are to be found