I got a Blu-ray player a couple of years ago for Christmas. The picture quality of Blu-ray is clearly better than DVD, especially on my big 65″ TV, but unless I think about it I don’t really notice it. But Blu-ray has one characteristic that makes it much inferior to DVD.
When I insert a Blu-ray disk, it takes a little longer to start up. That’s OK, it’s just a few seconds. But then almost every Blu-ray disk starts playing previews, one after another, and most of the controls are locked out. You can’t cut directly to the menu, you can’t skip to the next preview, and in some cases you can’t even fast-forward through the preview. You have to just let them play, one after another, for several minutes.
I find this extremely frustrating. Previews of a movie tend to spoil that movie for me when I watch it later. I want to go in knowing as little of the plot as possible. When I go see movies in a theater I usually wait outside the theater until the previews have finished playing. I know, it’s a little bit anal, but I like it that way.
I’ll do that in a theater. But in my home with my own equipment and a disk that I have paid money to buy or rent, I feel that I should be able to watch the movie when I want. Leave the previews there on the menu as an option for those who want to watch them, but let me skip them and cut directly to the movie.
So I cancelled my Netflix Blu-ray option and am going back to plain DVD for all my movies. With a DVD I can always skip the previews, or some people even copy it and strip out the previews, FBI warning, etc.( though of course I would never do anything of such questionable legality). I’ll stick with DVDs or streaming until I can get a Blu-ray player that will let me control the disc instead of vice-versa. Maybe I’ll find one in Taiwan…
6 responses so far ↓
1 Don // Mar 26, 2013 at 12:29 pm
“little bit anal”
? 😉
I kind of agree with most of your points but about the only thing I use my Blu-ray for anymore is streaming movies from Netflix or something else.
I don’t buy DVDs or Blu-rays anymore.
2 Daryl // Mar 26, 2013 at 9:49 pm
When I said “a little bit anal, but I like it that way”, I hope it didn’t give the wrong impression (Not that there’s anything wrong with it…)
3 Dale // Mar 27, 2013 at 10:58 am
Watching previews never spoiled a movie for me. In fact, I can watch a good movie over and over. The critics many times disagree with me on what is a good movie so I don’t read them much.
I agree with you that you should not have to watch them if you dont want to. I also agree that blueray and hi-def are way over rated; I can enjoy an old black and white if the story is good.
4 Don // Mar 27, 2013 at 12:32 pm
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Classic Seinfeld.
No, that’s not really what I was implying. I should have put the emphasis on the “little”. Maybe exchanged it with the word “lot”. 😉
5 Donna // Mar 31, 2013 at 2:17 pm
I agree, Daryl. I want to skip the previews and get to the movie. I don’t mind previews in a theater, but on a disk, they are usually of upcoming DVD releases, so I’ve already seen either the trailers or many times the movie. I don’t want to sit through them again.
Additionally, I hate paying money to see a movie in a theater, and then having them play commercials before the movie starts! That’s double dipping by the already overly-rich Hollywood industry.
Funny graphic on Blu-Ray. Did you create it?
6 Daryl // Apr 1, 2013 at 2:57 pm
Donna, no I found the graphic, but it seemed very appropriate.
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