Worst Of DVDs

[evirus]

what annoys you the most when it comes to watching or buying dvds?


Obvious Features: "interactive menus" "english 5.1 surround audio" "chapter list" what ever it is its pretty much the standard for all DVDs but listed as if it was something special.

Featureless Early Releases: DVDs that are released without any features, only to be re-released with several features and hailed as a "special edition"


Forced Viewing: weather it be the "fbi warning of doom" the production company logos or previews, the dvd won't allow you to skip past them until they have been fully played.


PC DVD-ROM Only Features: features that are only accessible when putting the dvd into your computer, worse yet is when they are still displayed on the menu in the dvd player.

Non Descriptive Menus: section titles that don't really elude to their contents yet in one way or another relate to the movie's theme.

[MiniMandaRuth]

1. Featurless editions,

or the editions that have only half-assed features, then they get re-relieased with 'newer, better' features.

George Luca$, I'm looking at you.

[evirus]

2. i vote obvious features

you probably know why from my OP

[skygazer]

3. I don't really like DVD's anyway

I don't see that they're all that better visually than VHS and small imperfections will cause them to skip or freeze or simply not play. I generally have little use for the extras - I find most commentaries to be exercises in self-promotion and deleted scenes have usually been deleted for a reason. Just another way to squeeze more bucks out of the consumer, IMO.

[evirus]

4. their pretty good for old shows

for example if you just wanted to watch one episode, you can find it in a mater of secounds as apposed to minutes with tapes

[ghostsofgiants]

5. You're kidding, right?

You don't see the visual difference between a dvd and a VHS cassette? Some advice: Get your eyes checked.

[QuestionAll...]

6. forced viewing bugs the Hell out of me...

I don't mind the extra features, sometimes it really adds to the production/story line/background. Saw Capote the other week and didn't realise that it was filmed in my city and surroundings! thought there were some familiar scenes, but caught up in the story and all I didn't place them.

but not being able to skip right to the movie that I bought or rented, bristles my hairy ass big time.

[ikri]

8. Agreed

I think on the Shrek 2 DVD there's a 5 minute forced preview for another film that bugs the hell out of me, there's no way to skip past it at all.

And the anti-piracy ads make me scream - I've just bought the f***ing DVD and you're telling me that it's a bad idea to buy a pirated copy of the film. :mad:

[bikebloke]

7. Features aren't that important

I really don't care much for extra features. My main concern is the transfer quality. Most "making of..." features are nothing but trailers padded with talking heads. Though there are exceptions. How the Magnicent Seven came to be is a good documentary. And Mullholland Drive had a good one about John C Holmes.

I read a couple DVD discussion boards to get a heads up on what to avoid. Whenever there's another release with "extra!" extra features, folk are groaning that they'll have to buy it again (like they really need closed circuit security footage of the janitor sweeping the set after everyone else has left). And those kind of buyers are encouraging the studios to pull that crap.

[evirus]

9. features are fine

as long as they come in the orignal, if not then don't even try to re release it, post it on youtube or something

[Initech]

10. Elaborate, animated menus

[ForrestGump]

11. Several things. From your list,

I'd go with as the most annoying quirks the obvious 'special' features ("special on THIS edition only, a chapter list and Albanian subtitles!"), forced viewing of warnings or previews, and PC DVD-ROM features (because they aren't made for Macs, although the f***ing DVDs are probably even authored on Macs and Sun systems, as are half of the original films, and Macs still reign in Hollywood and other creative circles).

I also think that every film on DVD should come with, at minimum, the trailer for the film. No matter how many times I watch a movie, I usually like to watch the trailer before the feature -- just kind of a thing I got used to when I started watching DVDs -- and I just don't like it when the trailer's MIA. What really makes me wonder is when a DVD that's loaded with prodigious special features, perhaps even as a two-disk set, is somehow missing the trailer, or has multiple previews for other films but not the one at hand. huh?

I like a lot of the substantial DVD extras. I'm very interested in the processes of film-making and I love watching the films again with commentary or with multiple commentaries. Sometimes even a bad film can be redeemed by watching with commentary tracks (or by viewing documentaries on the making of the film), and in the case of some films -- such as This Is Spinal Tap (with Tap commenting on the film, in character throughout) and Bubba Ho Tep (with Bruce Campbell firmly in character as Elvis and critiquing his own performance and the movie, at times not happy with the way he's portrayed or how little that Campbell character looks like him) -- the commentary tracks can be a whole additional entertainment experience on a par with the film. The commentaries I've heard for John Carpenter and Kurt Russell collaborations, too, with actor and director shooting the breeze (Big Trouble In Little China, one of my all-time favorites, and also The Thing, that I finally saw for the first time a few months ago), are also very good, as are the ones for The Mummy and its sequel.

I also like when films based (almost always loosely) on historical events include archival footage or other kinds of documentary on those events and the people involved. I just now finished watching a two-disc set of The French Connection that has some interesting examples of that, as did The Cinderella Man that I just recently watched. You can learn a lot from that kind of thing, though movies these days very often send me running to the Web to look up further background information, a thing that would have been more difficult before the advent of this communicative medium.

[Broken_Hero]

12. forced viewing

but lack of features is my second. I think its weird, if you go out and buy a new release, for 16 bucks, and the only special feature is the trailer to the movie...yet, I buy a cheapo five dollar dvd, and its loaded with special features...