Stop fucking up DVDs.

The BBQ Pit
1

Inspired by this thread, sort of.

Who’s screwing up the DVDs? With all the people at the Dope, I guarantee some of you are.

In the hopes that it will help, here’s what you do : open the box, pop it out. Holding it by the edges, put it in the DVD tray, play it, put it back in the box.

No where in these steps is one required to touch the bottom side of the disc with a finger tip.

No where in these steps does a sharp object get dragged across the disc.

No where in these steps should a booger or booger-like object get on the DVD.

No where in these steps does it say, “drag the disc across the mud and grass in your front yard.”

Keep in mind, your video store pays for the replacement costs, which means YOU AND I pay for the replacement costs.

Keep in mind, that I go to the video store, spend my time picking out a movie, go home, feed the dogs, get into my PJs, put the disc in the player, settle into my ass-groove on the sofa, dim the lights, crack a beer, and press play.

At this juncture, you can imagine just how much I don’t want to go back to the video store to make a swap.

Stop being morons.

2

Yeah, whatever happened to those indestructible shiny disks we were promised back in the 80s? You know, you could stomp on 'em, throw 'em across the room and they’d still play - they used some kinda hi-tech laser doohickey so they would never wear out!

3

While we’re at it, to DVD manufacturers:

Please do not disable the menu button. I know how much you want me to sit through the FBI warning and whatever promo but I’d just as soon cut to the chase. You might just find this hard to believe, but I’ve seen the FBI warning before.

I like the idea of having wide screen and full screen on the same disc. But would it kill you to have something in readable type stating which side should be up for which format?

If you’re going to have a feature, please make sure it works. If I click a button and nothing happens, it is disappointing.

4

I’m with the OP on this one. I know that we were promised back in the '80s that optical drive discs like CDs and DVDs would be virtually indestructible, but that doesn’t mean we have to try and test the theory every time we pick one up.

I rent DVDs from my local independent video store, and i also borrow them from my university library, and i swear that it sometimes looks like the discs have been used by a police department’s fingerprint training squad. Is it so fucking hard to hold the thing by its edge?

Also, when removing a DVD from its case, if the disc requires 30 pounds of pressure to remove, you might check to see if you need to press the little button in the middle in order to release it. That way, you’re less likely to wreck the disc layers, or to break the thing completely in half.

This annoys the fuck out of me too. One advantage of watching DVDs on a computer, which i sometimes do, is that you can fast-forward through the various FBI and other piracy warnings.

5

Can I add:
Dear DVD manufacturer,

I have no real qualms about the FBI warning, (although surely I have it memorized by now and don’t need to see it thrice weekly) – but as for previews and advertisments that immediately follw and also can’t be skipped… FUCK YOU.

6

Yeah, but it is so cuuuute to let little Timmy Rugrat put the disc in the player. See how grown up he is? That’s a gooood boy, now don’t suck on the disc, there you go, goood booooy!!

7

You know something that gets me with a DVD?

SOME OF THEM (not all) make it SO hard to tell which menu option is selected.

The “selected” one will be a yellowish white, and the rest will be a pale yellow.

Or, the background of the main menu is filled with multi-colored twinkling stars and the indicator of the menu item will be. . .stars that change color.

Not to mention trying to navigate scenes. If you scroll to the side on one DVD you go to the next 4 scenes. On another, it cycles back to the other side of the screen. Sometimes, pushing down will select some other subset of scenes, and another pushing down highlights the “back” button. Not that you can tell what’s highlighted any (see the previous point).

Sometimes, the have 5 scenes on a screen. 3 on the top 2 on the bottom. So, if you scroll DOWN from the upper left it goes to the menu at the bottom. If you scroll down from top center, it goes to the left scene on the bottom, etc.

Don’t get me started on trying to navigate the layers of sub-menus to see the extras.

8

Also, DVD manufacturers, it’s really annoying to have a small cut scene every time i switch screens on the menu. And its even worse when there’s some kind of annoying music playing, so every time i go back to the main manu I have to hear the same few bars

OVER

AND

OVER

AGAIN

9

Oh, what movie did I rent recently… Something actually had a little clip in the menu that was a pretty serious spoiler!

It may have been Taken… or at least it was something I rented around the same time frame that I rented Taken.

10

Unless it’s one of theose DVDs where there’s an indent on the side, or there’s some sort of twisty thing, or multiple prongs holding the disc in place, or …

Wht can’t DVD sleeve makers come up with a single design that, you know, works. Especially for those of us with the dextrerity of a drunken gorilla.

11

makes a mental note to put her “best and worst of DVD menu design” website back up

12

Stay away from my fine china, please.

Seriously, Eats_Crayons*, I’ve seen that and it orks the hell out of me, too. DVD manufacturers shouldn’t assume everyone who gets DVDs has already seen the movie! My coworker lives 45 minutes out of the city and never watches the movie in the theatres. She buys them, figuring that if she spends $10 or $15 it’s the same price as driving in works out to be.

  • I *love * your username. I wish I had thought of it first.
13

I live three blocks from a threatre. It costs less to buy a DVD of the latest blockbuster than to go to the theatre.

Unfortunately, the forgein flick and arthouse movies are more expensive as DVDs. But still, I can own the movie for the same or less than a trip to the googleplex where I have to deal with cellphones ringing, people chewing their cud with their mouths open, talking, and shitty food that gives me the squats.

I’ll take a DVD purchase any old time.

So I mean it DVD manufacturers, NO SPOILERS IN THE MENU CLIPS.

stamps foot

14

I have, on occasion, played a DVD in the bedroom while I go to sleep…something light, not full of 'splosions or screaming or such, only to be awakened [(movie run tme)-(time elapsed when I fell asleep)] minutes or hours later by the inordinately loud and/or obnoxious tune/sounds that accompany the main menu. I’m looking at you, A Knight’s Tale.

15

And for the love of all that is worth viewing on DVD, remember some DVDs are double sided. If I yell at you to B]STOP THAT** and you are mucking with my DVD then you STOP. Don’t give me the excuse that it is not the back side. That one may have no back side.

16

:smiley: Because of not being able to forward through that warning, I can now honestly say:

“September 8, 1977 - We Will Never Forget!”

17

Gah, presonally I have run into two designs I hate.
1-There’s a button to push, and an indent on the side so you can get the disk out with one hand. Only, there’s a ridge around the entire disk that does not stop and the indented parts. Why have the indent there is you’re going to block it and make it useless anyhow?
2-I only ran into this today, but I couldn’t get the disk out with two hands. There was the indent, but where the button was…well, there wasn’t really a button. There was a cylinder there, with an open top, and five of those movable tabs that make it easier to get the disk in than out. Pushing did nothing except make my thumb sore. I handed it over to someone else to figure out, because I was afraid I was going to break the disk. There is no way for a person to push in all five of those tabs at once and still get the disk out.

Most DVD cases are decent, but some make no sense. It’s just more fuel for my working theory that designers never make products they themselves use.

And a very, very minor, series specific rant. I’ve been buying a series on DVD, and each episode has a short special at the end. However, for some reason, it’s after the end credits. The first time I watched an episode on DVD, I was showing it to a friend, and didn’t notice that the special was there, so I didn’t get to show it to him (which I wanted to, the things are damn cute). It’s only mentioned once on the packaging, and the type is small and I missed it. When I got home and looked at it again, I noticed the specials were there (which made me quite happy, I would have been pissed if they weren’t), just after the end credits. Why not include it with the rest of the episode?

18

Both The Usual Suspects and The Hudsucker Proxy have spoilers on the main menu.

The worst one of these I’ve seen is the Mr. Show DVDs. Before each episode, there’s a screen with two options, side by side. One is red bordered and the other blue. Which one is selected? Who knows! And the buttons wrap around the screen, so if you press the left arrow, the colors switch, but if you press the right arrow… the colors switch, regardless of where they were before. Aaargh!

19

Ooohh yessssssss. Because if those DVDs are supposed to last forever, just how interested are we going to be in those previews, ten years from now?

Hell, I’m not even interested in the previews that appear on LAST year’s movies.

20

Bastaaaaaaards!