The arrogance of DVD publishers
July 18th, 2007
For reasons I won’t go in to I bought the entire 4 series DVD set of Monk which I’m watching randomly. It’s been really cheaply and annoyingly put together on the DVD.
When you insert the disk you get the usual Universal graphic display (which of course you can’t skip – why the hell do the publishers think we want to watch this crap). Then you have to choose a language. Then you get 45 seconds of copyright and then the main menu.
The thing is the main menu has a language option – it struck me only last night why they make you choose a language upfront – it’s so they can show you the copyright notices in the right language.
Is there anything more arrogant than these guys? We pay for the damn DVD and they force a horrible experience on you simply so they can tell you not to copy the damn thing? Movie producers keep selling us on the ‘experience’ of their films but when you go to the cinema or watch the DVD you paid for, the experience is continually broken by their commercial interruptions.
The music industry has already started dying a deserved death – when will we get rid of these idiots as well?
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3 Comments
Add your own1. William | July 18th, 2007 at 11:11 am
The problem is, that if one is wanting to stick it to the man, but still feels guilty for taking it out on the little people, even though pirating you can still support your favourite artist and not their record company by going to the their gigs, buying the mouse pads etc..
With the movie industry there is no way to surpass corporate control, without piracy, and no way to show your “support” for your favourite director other than paying the corporate machine to see their work.*
Personally I think DVD’s (and their HD follow-ups) are on their way out. Since converting my viewing to entirely HD based media, I find the whole DVD thing incredibly annoying, when you are used to the immediacy of being able to watch what you want on tap, and believe me if you see the guff on the beginning of Disney DVD, you can understand why this is a much better bet.
* Of course there are indie, free web things, but come on, we all want to see a car change into a fighting Autobot and things like that are not going to be on myspace anytime soon.
2. Clayton | July 18th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Yes we do all want to see Transformers, but as the years go by I find fewer and fewer movies that I absolutely have to see. I remember accidentally seeing the Truman Show about 10 or 12 years back and being stunned – there are few if any amazing films being released by the big producers anymore.
Disk based video is the step change though – anyone who’s ever used a Tivo for a day will suddenly find real television to be an experience devoid of pleasure – the same for digital video.
I suspect that the root of my post is that we’re becoming used to defining our own experience, and the big cinema or DVD defined experience just feels wrong. I dread going to the cinema these days because I find myself wanting to fast forward through the annoying bits of films, being restricted in that I can’t pause things to get a drink etc.
3. William | July 18th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
The movie industry, like the record industry is just used to bringing in the bucks, based on decade old systems, and instead of evolving their system, they spent too much time, trying to protect it with quite ridiculous restrictions (region codes?), against mounting odds.
A simple solution that I thought would certainly quell a good deal of piracy in my opinion is to accept that their control is diminishing, piracy is in a good part because of the ease of attaining great catalogues of media immediately, and to release a title, simultaneously in every format available. ie Theatre, DVD, download, online etc, which is effectively what happens at the moment, just illegally.
Mr Clayton, you sound like a guy, with whom I have a lot in common. We should meet up
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