Why, oh why do the studios insist that I sit through three, yes THREE previews of other movies (that I do not want) before being able to see Bruce Almighty? It was a fairly funny movie, one that I just might have purchased had it not been for the stupid thought police and their control tactics. My DVD player didn't even let me fast forward or skip through the previews. If I had bought the movie instead of just renting it I would be pissed.

Is there a DVD player that does not lock the skip/ff/menu functionality during these "mandatory" previews?

LOTR extended editions do it up right. No previews, no studio splash screens, no THX certified earbusters, just straight to the menu, and hit Enter to play. I like those. It's bad enough that we have to sit through 20 minutes of commercials before movies in the theater (I've begun to show up 15 minutes late now). When are they going to begin stopping the movie midway to pitch more Coke and Dockers to us?

Maybe this is why DVDs are cheaper than music CDs.

I really hate that too. Just FYI, the good dvd copying programs will strip all those prohibitions from a dvd as it copies it, as well as all the macrovision and region encoding of course. Since macrovision frequently gives me problems as well, I can now say that a copied (single layer) disc is functionally much superior to an original disc for me.

And yes, there are players that will ignore those prohibitions too. Not sure off-hand which, but look at http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdhacks or http://www.dvdmod.com .

I'm planning on writing a letter soon, asking for a refund, and demanding that future releases stop this. I on average buy 2 DVDs a week, and have been seeing a ton of them.

The studios that don't do this are getting a letter showing my thanks for not being stupid. If anything, at least do it the way the Paramount did, where they pop up a menu when you put it in with "Previews" or "Main Menu" as an option, that times out to the previews if left alone. It's better then the alternative.

Oh, and Bruno, get the people at ATI to make the DVD player to allow skipping of anything if it doesn't already.

Obviously I don't speak for Bruno, but I'd guess that part of being allowed to use the DVD trademark (ie name and logo) involves signing a technology license that prevents allowing circumvention of such adverts and warnings. To the best of my knowledge no vendor-supplied player can skip them.

However, since nearly all of the players now are implemented using DirectShow filter technology, and the filters themselves do not (can not?) have that limitation, a DirectShow-based third party UI that uses vendor-supplied filters can circumvent the FBI warning and adverts.

What you want to do is get Zoomplayer from inmatrix.com and check out its bookmark feature. It'll happily use your ATI-supplied filters.

I can't believe that any of you are even remotely surprised by the fact that we are made to sit through commercials in DVDs. What did you think was going to happen when companies realized that DVD players could be made to do what they wanted and take the control out of the hands of the users? Its a slippery slope type of deal, and consumers buy in to the technology so willingly because they don't understand that given the opportunity, big companies are going to take advantage of their "free will" and market to them on the consumers dime.

when companies realized that DVD players could be made to do what they wanted

They've known since day one. They've just avoided springing it on us until they'd achieved critical mass. It's too late for an alternative format now.

...until they'd achieved critical mass...

Yes, good point. I guess what I wanted to say was that the format was pushed so hard by just about everyone so that it would get to that critical mass.

I understand your complaint and agree with it, but, as a practical solution, pop in the DVD, then go make your movie snacks -- pop popcorn, grab a coke, whatever. By the time you get back, the previews will be over, or if there are none, it'll be sitting at the menu anyway. There's the occasional older DVD that'll just go straight into the movie, but it's easy enough to restart those.

And, on another point, I hate product advertisements in the theater but I don't mind trailers. Trailers are good. But the reason they suck on a DVD is that you're just going to see the same ones over and over. At the theater, you have the chance of seeing a new trailer. They also seem to advertise the worst movies on DVDs. I guess they overpressed those.

What belongs to DVD?

Why, their "and commercials" of course!

I prefer DVD's not commercials, in that case.

Also, you can usually fast-forward, not track skip, through the previews.

Also, you can usually fast-forward, not track skip, through the previews.

I don't think that it is terribly unreasonable to assume that eventually you will have to sit through 10 minutes of crap before the movie.

It is the way of greed and indifference.