http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News...x?NewsId=11595


Is this some sort of sick joke???

Sadly, I suspect this is true. My brother was telling me the other day that the DVD player wouldn't let him fast forward the trailers on Shaun of the Dead, so it apparently enforceable, at least in so far as most people wont be able to, or wont be bothered to, bypass it.

Yet more GREED. Greed is the downfall of EVERYTHING. AOL, is going out of business soon I predict, because of greed.

AOL's no big loss, but by God this is ridicolous!

If they do that, I'm going back to VHS.

If they do that, I'l keep using Kazaa.

Ditto re that. Bad enough TV forces advertising crap down our throats, and radio, AND junk mail and e-mail!

So, the dastardly fast-forward felon costs the industry vast amounts of money.

And to save the poor honest advertisment viewers a price rise, they're going to build in fast-forward protections (for just a little bit extra). Who knows how many of these criminals are out there. Perhaps there are so many that the price of DVDs can actually be lowered. There have to be -some- precedents of something like that. Somewhere.

And it's all fair, right? It's not like you -have- to watch the DVD you bought or rented or didn't even get yet. That's a personal choice. There is no-one forcing you to watch the ads if you do not want to see the movie.


...


I was thinking, it also costs the DVD maker money if you get up and walk away during the advertisments. People choosing to watch a DVD should be forced to sit it out from start to finish. Sure, they can pause it to fetch a drink or use the bathroom, but they should have to sit and wait for the advertisements at the end of the disk as well. They can skip the movie though and fast-forward to the commercial parts.

No doubt they will want to ensure you can't turn down the volume either.

...

You poor souls, spending money on DVD players.

[ 01-07-2005, 07:08 PM: Message edited by: Legolas ]

Yeah, also TivO is soon making it not allow FF of commercials or you can, but you gotta watch ad banners. Uh, Wasn't Tivo one reason to skip commercials? (Besides taping shows)?? Don't these commercial people know that by forcing us to watch them, it angers us, and we WILL NEVER buy what they force us to watch? Morons.. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

This is promoting piracy. At least it's not helping counter-piracy.

The foot? it ssounds more like taking the pin out of a handgrenade and sticking it... erhmmm were the sun don't shines...

I predict that in 2-3 years there will be a law that requires all citizens to spend at least 2 hours a day in special advertisement booths were commercials will be forced down their throat. Those who disobey will be hunted down.

This happened to me the other day too with Shaun of the Dead. What is next?

<span style="color: lightblue">Blocking fast forward is nothing new. It's been around down here for about as long as there have been DVDs, but I've only seen it on the copyright notice.
It is bypassable, though. You just need a player that ignores the instruction to block fast forward. Which is basically anything that goes on your computer rather than through your TV.

Since the computer is becoming more common as a home entertainment thing (at the rate things are going, this might even be common place in the next few years), how well this works depends on one thing and one thing only. If open source wins the war that's already starting, this won't work. People will be allowed to simply recompile the decoders, having removed the fast-forward prevention code. If proprietry companies, such as Microsoft or Apple, are allowed to keep their monopolies, the movie companies will have some control over them and force the decoders to prevent fast forwarding; and noone will be able to change that.
If everything is open, everything is free. And that is how it should be.

Great. Where are the uniforms and molotov cocktails? Come Comrade LennonCook, the revolution awaits!

I'm so glad I live in China. Keeping in mind the quality of DVDs here is poor, and they are also pirated copies (I don't think it is even *possible* to buy a non-pirate copy here), no enterprising pirate is going to force anyone to sit through advertisements. Let's face it, most of the time they cut out the "special features" and end credits to boot.

Is it wrong? Sure, on some level. But it's just was wrong to force a guy to sit through previews *in his own home*. Anyway, if I find a movie that's worthwhile, I'll break down and buy a real copy (through friends in the states or japan if i have to) but considering the last great movie I was was 'Pirates of the Carribean', I'm not going to hold my breath or waste money on a DVD that forces me to sit through ads.

Well, if that's true, and I think the same thing happened with PotC on the weekend, then please people let's stop buying and renting all together. I'll just go back to Video tape. I hate being f**ked with like that. I payed to watch a movie and that's it. I'm strongly against pirating and that's why I rent. That would change my mind if I knew I had to sit through commercials.

ridiculus, this is just plain stupid, yeah, this happens, then back to good ol vhs for me XD

I've seen this idea before on CNN. I wonder what movie directors say about it? If they push this law for "non-self-serving professional reasons" then I know what to look for when to decide if a movie is one i don't buy.

How exactly do TV and radio force "crap down our throats"? Is someone sitting there forcing you to watch TV or listen to the radio? Go to the library and get a book, go outside for a walk, do a puzzle, or do any of the thousands of other things that you can do other then watch TV or listen to the radio. TV and Radio arn't forceing squat down your throat, you're making a choice to use a service, and the price you usually have to pay is that you have to deal with advertisements. For the radio at least there are 100% commercial free alternatives that you can get if you're willing to pay for it, and most areas have commercial free public TV and Radio. So if you're really bothered by it then you should do something about it, rather then compain about a service that some of us happen to enjoy regardless of advertising.

[ 01-07-2005, 10:22 PM: Message edited by: Seraph ]

How exactly do TV and radio force "crap down our throats"? Is someone sitting there forcing you to watch TV or listen to the radio? Go to the library and get a book, go outside for a walk, do a puzzle, or do any of the thousands of other things that you can do other then watch TV or listen to the radio. TV and Radio arn't forceing squat down your throat, you're making a choice to use a service, and the price you usually have to pay is that you have to deal with advertisements. For the radio at least there are 100% commercial free alternatives that you can get if you're willing to pay for it, and most areas have commercial free public TV and Radio. So if you're really bothered by it then you should do something about it, rather then compain about a service that some of us happen to enjoy regardless of advertising. </font>[/QUOTE]Dude, you gotta get that poker out of your ass sometime, doesn't it hurt after all this time ? I'm sure she means that when you watch a movie, or a show, or whatever, it gets interrupted by a commercial blog every other 15 minutes, that IS forcing adds down people's throats. We all pay for watching TV, so we also have a right to complain if we don't like what we see.

I hear people talking about going back to VHS. You could also try to go out and read a book :D We should all go back to the Video2000 system.

Well Zuvi old buddy, this may come as a shock, but people watch movies and read too!

[ 01-08-2005, 07:18 AM: Message edited by: Variol (Farseer) Elmwood ]

And by reading, you don't mean the subtitles right? :D

Ooh, you got me on that one! Well, if you're watching Hero and the like, I guess you'd have to.
I'm a little lacking for reading material right now. My wife bought me one of the Earth, Final Conflict books. I don't watch it, but the book is not too bad.

At least most books don't have commercials between the chapters. Yet.

Pssst! Don't give them any ideas!
This new commercial shi* is really bugging me. Especially with the fact that only the average DVD watcher will have to endure the commercials, anyone just a tad bit more savvy will just find a way to skip it, as it really isn't hard at all. Stupid buggers..

Ok I guess I'm the Bozo now! PM your secret if you don't want to say!

Hey, no prob, I watch all my anime subbed, so I don't mind asian-spoken movies.

And as for reading: I can't even get myself to reading fantasy novels anymore. All I read are law-books and law-reports. I still have the last four Shannara books in plastic :eek:

On some DVD players for example, fooling around with picture settings causes it to skip to the next scene. Also, some DVD players have near-computer DVD-ROM technology, allowing you to simply skip it.

Sooo many good quotes, I had to pick them all!

Amen, brother, to THAT!!!

LOL!

It sure is an arguement for me to pirate movies!!! Arrrrr!!!

LOL! The thing is, when you see a vast industry built upon advertisement go under (talking the former Telephone soliciting industry, here in the US); you gotta find SOMETHING for these annoying people to do! I mean, you can't have them actually go get a REAL job, now can you?

To me the people who do advertising are acceptable; as they do a necessary function of letting people know about the product/services that people need. Now that said, the people who FORCE ads down your throat should be taken to someplace where a different and new (much better than the original) version of "survivor" TV show goes on. These people have to endure living on an island littered with landmines, filled with all kinds of natural life threatening dangers, and if they get voted off; they get shot dead.

the winner then might get an advertising job (albiet a real one).

SilentThief
PS I don't think there are any Advertising execs here at I-works, becuz they wouldn't stand for a No-Ad environment; but if there are, I apologize if I ticked you off. But for the sake of arguement, I don't go around forcing MY opinion on others... except here.

[ 01-08-2005, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: SilentThief ]

How exactly do TV and radio force "crap down our throats"? Is someone sitting there forcing you to watch TV or listen to the radio? Go to the library and get a book, go outside for a walk, do a puzzle, or do any of the thousands of other things that you can do other then watch TV or listen to the radio. TV and Radio arn't forceing squat down your throat, you're making a choice to use a service, and the price you usually have to pay is that you have to deal with advertisements. For the radio at least there are 100% commercial free alternatives that you can get if you're willing to pay for it, and most areas have commercial free public TV and Radio. So if you're really bothered by it then you should do something about it, rather then compain about a service that some of us happen to enjoy regardless of advertising. </font>[/QUOTE]Work for an advertisement firm, do we? [img]smile.gif[/img]

I've seen some American talkshows, and it looks as if you get commercials every 5 minutes there... I really feel sorry for you. Here in Sweden we get them maybe every 15 minutes, sometimes less in popular shows like Friends. That annoys me anyway... They used to also be much louder than the shows, but now that's illegal so I don't get a shock every time there's a commercial break.

But what really ticks me off are the cinemas. If it says the film starts at 8 pm, then it should start at 8 pm, and not 8:15 pm after all the commercials... I'm okay with some trailers, in case some people are late, but I did not pay to see commercials. Going to the cinema is too expensive anyway... If I'm going to pay that much, I don't want commercials. :(

Try watching live coverage of the Worldseries, you'll go nuts. I wish they'd air it in delay of, let's say 10-15 minutes, that way they can let all the commercials out. I love watching baseball, but the commercials have made me fall asleep during a game more than once.

wow how i love to hate my country

I never fast forward through the adverts...

I just press the menu button and skip them outright.

*Sheesh* [img]tongue.gif[/img]

We have a great government funded national radio station around here. It's alternate so you don't have to deal with the popular crap, and it has absoloutly no ads, and it is just great. I can't deal with the other radio stations around, their breaks from constant advertistments by the occasional song, and those songs being "black pop" (r&b) and rap and horrible other things, it's our local sell out station.
We have a few good ones though, another one being one for older music, and however it does have a lot of advertising it is pretty good.

Anyway, for tv, well you get ads, that's why it is free.

but why should you be forced to watch ads? that doesn't make sense.

But are they talking about DVDs that have been rented or bought?

I can't skip or Fast Foward the ads on my DVD player, too.

No, I think it's the movies DVD that have locked the ads, not my player.

It's the same thing anyway...

<font color=plum>Yep, that's what my wife and I do too. This "fast forward block" is being done to ALL DVD's - NOT just the ones for rent. Our first experience with this was on the copy of <font color=lime>Shrek 2</font> we bought. An ad came on for a similar movie coming out this year, but when I hit the Fast Forward button, nothing happened and we were forced to watch the ads on the DVD before getting to the main movie menu.

But my wife was the one who discovered this same trick, that hitting the "Menu" button simply bypasses the ads and allows you to go straight to the movie. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

I also agree that I DO have the RIGHT to SKIP the ads on any movie if I actually BUY a copy of it.</font>

*Wonders how many DVD players are being sent back to the shop they were purchased from by people demanding a refund*

"I want a refund, it's still under guarantee, and the fast foward isn't working!"
"Sir, if it's still under guarantee then I assure you thats quite impossible..."

[ 01-09-2005, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: Sigmar ]

LOL SilentThief...I hope you're never a judge or anything.

"Welcome to Hanta Virus-Ozone Hole-Land Shark Isle!"