For a trifling £3 (or $19) on top of the regular DVD price, you get:
No menu to select Hungarian subtitles No warning that you may not play the DVD on an oil rig No trailers for all the movies you chose not to buy No scene-selection menu No director's commentary telling you how they filmed the dragon-hunting scene in Colchester using CGI No outer case with a holographic picture on it No plastic wrapper designed to prevent invading armies from reaching your disc. No 4-page pamphlet telling you about all the extra features you haven't got. No five-minute animation whose sole purpose is to present you, eventually, with the option to PLAY-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 27 2011 The first fight of rule club... http://verymisscoca...ht-club-warning.jpg [2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 28 2011] Just the phone Mobile_20phone_20th..._20phone_20calls_2eReminded me of this. [theleopard, Jun 01 2011] Sales and marketing would hate this. [+]-- 8th of 7, May 27 2011 Not that I've ever p i r a t e d, but I heard rumor there exist movies that have none of that nonsense.
But yes, movies are for entertainment & this junk gets in the way. I'd pay extra for it.-- sophocles, May 27 2011 Early DVDs were like this.
VLC allows you to skip straight to the movie, even when manufacturers have 'disabled' the fast forwarding.-- mitxela, May 28 2011 //a trifling £3 (or $19)//
Is this a choice as well? I'll take that trifling £3.
Or wait...we're paying more to get less (of something), right? Maybe I should go for the $19.
I have a feeling someone else is paying more to get those features added on than you are willing to pay to have them omitted. [+] for the sentiment, though.-- Boomershine, May 28 2011 BUN! [+]-- Grogster, May 28 2011 //a trifling £3 (or $19)//
...I wouldn't want a trifling math error get in the way of an informed consumer decision, but at the time of this writing the British pound is worth 1.6508 US dollars. Thus, £3 is currently worth about $4.95 USD, which might make the net price point of the slimmed-down product more easily marketable in the USA.-- jurist, May 28 2011 Also: No looping, animated menu with sound. I hate those things.
Yes, [mixtella], VLC is the ro><><orz. It now frustrates the hell out of me to play a DVD any other way.
You can also just play the VOB files directly, or use VLC play the movie, completely bypassing the disc's own menus.-- spidermother, May 28 2011 jurist, do I understand: It's the consumers' knowledge of exchange rates, that makes the sleeker version, special priced to USA videophiles at only $19, more marketable?-- Sir_Misspeller, May 28 2011 This certainly would be nice, but there are many problem with it.
You're going to have a lot of trouble convincing distributors to drop the previews and trailers. There is no incentive to distributors to do this, even an additional charge is not worth it them.
The value to distributors to get a few extra minutes of promotional material in front of already-interested viewers is quite substantial, and I doubt they'd be willing to give this up for twice or even three times the cost of the DVD. Certainly it's not worth a few pounds.
Further to [sophocles]' point, in this business it is the honest person who adheres to laws who is the one punished. People who pirate movies don't have to deal with any of the issues you mention, except for the things they might want (like subtitles and commentary tracks, some people think chapter selection is important).
The pirated file is "just the movie" as you say. It is the person who purchased the product who has make sure they have the right region, and whose remote is disabled forcing them to watch previews, and who is made to stare down the FBI and Interpol warning not to be a thief. The actual thief never sees it.-- tatterdemalion, May 28 2011 [tatterdemalion] Your economic analysis suggests that there *is* some price at which this idea would be attractive to to DVD producers.-- mouseposture, May 28 2011 ////a trifling £3 (or $19)//
For the French market, that equates to about €33 according to my estulation.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 28 2011 [mouseposture] Yes I am sure there is such a price, but it would far exceed any price which would be attractive to consumers, who seem happy to continue purchasing DVDs laden with all of the things about which [MaxwellBuchanan] laments.-- tatterdemalion, May 28 2011 //attractive to consumers, who seem happy to continue purchasing DVDs//
What choice do consumers have? It's like going to movies these days and having to sit through 10 minutes of advertising before the show. Only choice I see is to stay home and watch special feature-laden DVDs.-- Boomershine, May 28 2011 I assume the awkward sum of £3 was chosen so one may offer the 3 shillings change as a tip to the clerk.-- spidermother, May 28 2011 One may tip waiters, taxi-cab drivers and sommeliers, but _never_ clerks. One's footman can, of course.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 28 2011 We are not convinced that it is advisable to allow the staff to become aware of the existance of what is known as the "cash economy". It may result in all sorts of entirely unreasonable demands, and might eventually lead them to suppose that they are something other than your permanent and exclusive property.
It's a big risk ...-- 8th of 7, May 28 2011 I like the previews. They're like watching the sports highlights reel.-- infidel, May 29 2011 I hate the previews. They're like watching the sports highlights reel.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 29 2011 So all that's really needed is a stripped-down computer of some kind with a BIOS consisting largely of VLC plus a couple of drivers, and since VLC is open source, that's eminently bakeable. In fact, all that's really needed is an old motherboard with on-board graphics, a CPU and some memory, a DVD-ROM drive, a means of displaying stuff on TV and a remote control interface. Then you replace the BIOS with a tiny O/S including VLC and you've done it. As it happens, that reminds me of Microware OS-9.-- nineteenthly, May 29 2011 I watched one of them cam films once (just the once, y'r honour) the picture quality was poor but it was more interesting as it had the audience reaction sounds, so perhaps lose all that oil rig crap (and why is it, in any language they always have school and prison together on the copyright notice?) and tack on that audience reaction soundtrack..-- not_morrison_rm, May 30 2011 Whilst this is the least thinly disguised rant I've ever seen and should probably be [marked-for-deletion] no invention, I'd like to add in my own pet peeve about the FBI warning. I'm English, I live in England, I bought the DVD in England from an English shop with English money and I'm watching the bloody film in England. The FBI have no powers in this country so why the fuck (excuse my French) do I have to sit through a bloody FBI warning whenever I want to watch a film, eh?...and...relax!-- DrBob, Jun 01 2011 *watches US rendition helicopter circling above Lewes*-- calum, Jun 01 2011 I bought a couple of three packs of older DVD's and they were just like this. Stick DVD in - straight to (barely) animated menu. Also was best value three pack of movies I've ever bought - £10 and got Knight's Tale, Mask of Zorro and The Princess Bride. Brilliant.-- goff, Jun 01 2011 //The FBI have no powers in this country so why the fuck //
*ahem* actually, Dr. Bob, if you buy a DVD of the Dambusters in the USA, there is a short introductory announcement by The Queen reminding viewers that copying the disc or playing it to an audience of more than 12 people is an offense punishable by a fine of up to two guineas.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 01 2011 And then if you don't say "sorry" nicely, a modified Lancaster from 617 Squadron comes and drops a five tonne drum of Torpex on you, from exactly sixty feet. So there.-- 8th of 7, Jun 01 2011 If the Americans would only climb down off their high horses and borrow a few Lancasters, that whole mess in the Tribal Areas would be sorted in short order and the troops could be home for Christmas (and custard).-- mouseposture, Jun 02 2011 //borrow a few Lancasters// ...no can do. USAF pilots no longer compatible with the interface.-- lurch, Jun 02 2011 //... no longer compatible with the interface.//
Yeah, the Lancaster uses the old 9-pin joystick, while the USAF upgraded to the XBox360 interface some time recently. I think there's an adaptor you can buy, but it's a bit patchy.-- zen_tom, Jun 02 2011 My bun here [+] may not be seen in future episodes...-- xandram, Jun 02 2011 Is there an option for Blu-Ray discs that will eliminate the 45-second plug for Blu-Ray? I know I'm just an ignorant redneck from North Appalachia who thinks that a lifted Jeep Cherokee is an acceptable form of commuter transportation and cried actual tears when Winchester discontinued the Model 70, but I just don't see the point in making me watch an advertisement for a product that, by dint of the format in which said advertisement is delivered, I obviously already own.-- Alterother, Jun 02 2011 // cried actual tears when Winchester discontinued the Model 70 //
Who wouldn't ?-- 8th of 7, Jun 02 2011 //an option for Blu-Ray discs that will eliminate the 45-second plug for Blu-Ray? I know I'm just an ignorant redneck//
If you just lift the tone-arm and move the needle over about half an inch, you'll skip the intro.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 02 2011 Oh, thanks! Problem solved!-- Alterother, Jun 02 2011 //when Winchester discontinued the Model 70// ... '64?-- lurch, Jun 03 2011 Actually I think it was in some time in the '90s.-- FlyingToaster, Jun 03 2011 (I was just referring to an old-old flamefest about whether anything other than a pre-'64 Model 70 is a *real* Model 70.) </evil smirk>-- lurch, Jun 03 2011 Is it possible to strategically put scratches into a DVD so the FBI Warning and Previews parts are unwatchable, causing (on an advanced disc player) the laser beam to scan forward to the first playable section, which is the movie itself? Just wondering.-- phundug, Jun 03 2011 (I was referring to a 1994 centennial edition of the model 1894 which I vaguely remembered, but yeah, after reading the flamefest I'd have to agree 1963-4... don't mind me, one of my questions when I go into the gun shop is "but how does it rate as a hammer?")-- FlyingToaster, Jun 03 2011 Well, I wasn't alive in '64, so obviously I wasn't crying over the retirement of a venerated rifle back then... But, yeah, the pre-'64 was the ideal. I was just so excited when they brought back the 'real-ish' M70 in '95 (or was it '97? >scratching head<), only to scrap it for good a few years later. I'm just glad I own pristine examples of both to support my argument that the M70 was, is, and always will be superior in every way to the nearly-identical Remington 700.
Wait, weren't we talking about DVDs or something?-- Alterother, Jun 03 2011 *sigh*-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 03 2011 random, halfbakery