Forced advertisements - coming to a dvd near you
 

Canadian viewers at HTF confirm you cannot skip or fast forward through the commercial. Nice eh?

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...gory=ANSWERMAN

Q. The Canadian release of the DVD "Finding Neverland" contains an advertisement for an American automobile manufacturer. It is bad enough that we must watch ads in the theaters, but now on DVD?

I've registered a complaint with the film company and the manufacturer but am not naive enough to believe it will have any effect. It would not be as bad if there were an ability to fast forward or skip the ad but that option is not available on this disc.

J.W. Leman, Edmonton, Alberta

A. This is a new low. Advertising supports programming that I receive for free, on radio and television, and that's fine with me. But when I pay, I expect to see only what I have paid for. Ads in theaters are an abomination, hated by most of the moviegoers I talk to. To be locked into a compulsory viewing of an ad on a DVD, on top of the useless FBI warning that also cannot be skipped, is a new species of outrage. And years after that car is off the market, you'll still have to look at the ad, as it breeds continuing ill will for the manufacturer.

HTF thread: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...=&pagenumber=1

There's a very simple solution - do not buy the product. I know that often this is not known until one buys it, but if you do, skip over it.

This is not surprising though. The last two times I went to the movies, there were 35 commercials and trailers ahead of the movie. And the movie itself was 2.5 hours! Pretty crappy. A theater manager once told me that the theater makes more money in showing 2 hours worth of commericals and trailers than 2 hours worth of movie. I believe it.

Wow. That is terrible. I wonder if you could haggle enough to return an open dvd to get your money back over something like that. I would definitely try.

Most DVD players now have region-free hacks and support both PAL and NTSC. I find it strange that there are no codes to allow you to ignore the 'No-FF' rules.

You know, I'd actually be for this if they reduce the cost of the DVD significantly.

Meaning they'd have to sell the DVD for something like $5.

There's no way they should be charging full price if you're forced to watch commericals.

Fucking disgusting. :mad:

The sole reason I don't have cable is because there are more commercials than actual programming (a bit of an exageration, I know).
I refuse to pay $60 a month for someone to shove a product down my throat while I'm being entertained.

It's very sad and pathetic for companies to reach wherever they can to get you to buy stuff. I'm the kind of person that if I see an ad too much, I'll refuse to buy it on the principal that I'm sick of greed. That goes the same for movie trailers. The more I see them, the less I want to see the movie.

I don't care if companies have the right to make money, but NOTHING is sacred to these people anymore. The corperate mentality truly disgusts me.

This move to do this to DVD just shows that soon these assholes will fully invade people's personal lives just to get you to buy from them. Soon you'll be forced to put ads for Pepsi right on your living room walls.

I guess Ebert doesn't buy many newspapers or magazines.

DJ

With a newspaper or magazine, you can turn the page at your own pace. You're not forced to look at the ad any longer than you wish. Pretty different case IMHO.

I hate this. I've stopped going to the movies because of this. Sure I can go in 20 min after the start of the movie but then I will get a bad seat or possibly miss some of the opening. I've been purchasing dvd's for many year but I will not buy a DVD that I am forced to watch ads on. Studios will get away with whatever they can. If people continue to purchase movies with forced ads they will keep doing it.

I understand business, and the need to make a profit. I understand that businesses exist to make money for their owners and shareholders.

But there's a reason people pay a premium for commercial-free program sources. Whether it's TiVo, premium cable, or DVD, we consumers demonstrate again and again that we are willing to pay extra for programming that's unsullied by commercials.

Content providers should understand that, and honor the moral contract.

But of course, corporations have no souls, and therefore no morals. They will push us as far as they can, and THEY WON'T STOP UNLESS THEY LOSE BY NOT STOPPING. Premium cable channels are now full of ads. TiVo is experimenting with ads that pop up while fast-forwarding through commercials. And now this. If we just whine to each other without taking action, we deserve what we get.

We MUST refuse to buy DVDs with ads. We must refuse loudly and inconveniently by taking them back to the retailers and demanding refunds. By writing letters to the companies and to the newspapers and to the advertisers. By urging all our friends and neighbors and co-workers to join us.

It may be too late. We didn't draw the line at forced trailers and other studio ads, and that's what gave them the idea that we're too spineless to draw the line anywhere.

Are they right? I guess we'll find out pretty soon.

RichC

Yep, give them an inch and they take a mile. Next step: interrupting the actual movie every 15 minutes with "ad breaks", but hey we'll get used to it, won't we?

That's not a solution at all. So if I've been eagerly anticipating a film to come out on DVD for months - even years for some films like King Kong, African Queen, etc - I'm just supposed to pass over them because of some damned ad? Sure, it's a method of protest, but it's not worth passing over something I want to see for a minute or so of advertisement. Yes, it's awful, horrible, disgusting, etc, but your 'solution' is no solution at all.

Great. So now not only do I have to print up my own cover to replace the original bilingual abomination, now I have to modify the disk to remove the commercials, and burn it to a blank.

There's only a few disks I feel strongly enough about to do this, so I pass on a ton of movies nowadays.

My dvd purchasing has slowed dramatically as they continue to ramp up the inconvenience factor.

Your comment is a real heead-scratcher. Of course it's the solution, it's the only viable one. Don't buy the product. You did a balancing test for yourself, to you, having the movie on DVD is worth the extra hassling. It is for me as well.

But this is a business, and if you don't hit them where it hurts, then they won't hear you, as until it effects the bottom line, they won't care.

Well, unless you can organize that in some mass fashion, I don't think it's effective to simply not buy the product. IMHO, there really is no solution for individuals like us but to suck it up.

On some models, can't you hit the stop button, then the menu button. I think that should take you to the menu screen. But yeah this is pretty sad.

I'll also add that just boycotting the product just tells the studios that we just don't want said product, NOT the reason why ...UNLESS we also tell them WHY we are refusing to buy it.

I really wish people, other than these nutjob right wing groups, had more conviction to stand up for our freedom of choice. All we do is bitch about it to each other and suck it up, while these soccer mom, PC type people lobby to the actual source to get only Foolscreen transfers and G rated entertainment.

It won't be long until we lose this fight to them and end up NOT getting what WE want.

So if the original Star Wars Trilogy comes to dvd and has forced ads on it, are you going to refuse to buy it?????

The $3 you spend on a magazine doesn't go towards the cost of the content. It covers printing and distribution. The ads are what pays the salaries of the writers, editors, etc.

Actually, we should complain to the companies that are buying the advertising. If their products were boycotted, they wouldn't pay to have the ads on the DVDs.

That would be an endless loop. Pester one enough to drop out and another steps in, repeat.

If I run into commercials where they shouldn't be (on a DVD, store-bought tape or in a movie theater for example) I'll simply boycott whatever product is being advertised. If I know a disc has forced trailers or other ads on it, then unless it's a title I really want, then I will not buy that disc. That's already saved me from a couple Universal titles that I wasn't really sure about. I did buy the "Shrek 2" DVD which has a forced trailer for Shark Tale, AND I've heard now the Shark Tale disc has more forced trailers on that! While Shark Tale looks slightly amusing, it's not high on my priority list, and so I'm not buying it at all since I've been put off by having the trailer for it shoved in my face every time I want to watch Shrek 2.
I would still buy the original versions of the Star Wars Trilogy if they had unskippable ads, but I would boycott whatever product was advertised, and I'm sure that would provoke many people to illegally copy the discs and remove the ads, rather than buying the discs.

Did you know about the Politics forum ?

In the UK, one multi-region modification company (that has now gone bust) used to provide "disabling of user prohibitions" on their region-modified Sony DVD players at no extra charge.

My first DVD player was one of these. Until that player died and I had to replace it, I never fully released or appreciated just how wonderful it was to be able to skip through anything, change subtitles/audio tracks at will, etc.

Oh how I miss those days :(