Worst. DVD. Format. EVAR.

Cafe Society
1

I know there have been numerous threads about lousy DVD formats before. That is, DVDs that make you jump through hoops just to watch the feature, or to see the deleted scenes, or force you to watch 20 minutes of trailers.

But I think I have come to the King Daddy of bad formats. This one just had me scratching my head.

The movie was Sleepers, which was a decent enough movie.

Looking at the disk, it was one of those double-sided disks without a label. So I had to stand under a strong light with a magnifying glass just to get a clue as to what the microscopic writing said. “Widescreen version. More content on reverse side.” OK, I figured, I had the right side to play the version I wanted. So I put it in the player.

I sort of don’t like it when I don’t get a main menu at first, and it just starts right in with the movie. But that’s OK, I can always go back for the special features later.

So I’m watching, and it starts to look like a decent movie. It’s just starting to get interesting, when about 1:15 in the picture starts breaking up and stalling. Annoyed, I try to skip to the next chapter, and the movie just stops dead. I tried navigating directly to about 1:15:30, to see if I can start it just past the distortion and continue on. I get a few seconds of distortion, then it stops. I clean the disk and try again, same thing. So I decide to navigate to exactly 1:16:00. No movie.

The hell?

So I start it again, and go to the main menu. Select A Scene. It shows icons for scenes 4-9. No way to navigate to any earlier or later scenes. The only way to navigate out is back to the menu.

So frustrated, I turned the disk over, figuring I’d watch the rest in fullscreen mode. And what happens? Before I get a menu, suddenly I’m watching a scene I hadn’t seen yet. Widescreen. Apparently, they’d decided to split the movie between both sides. There was no notice on side one to continue on side two. Nothing on side two that said to continue.

So this was a 2:30 long movie split between two sides. But there were different special features on the different sides, right? Nope. Same ones. At least there were good and lengthy features, right? Nope. No commentary, no behind the scenes, nothing. Just some text-only bios and stuff. Oh, and that lovely feature that shows you some posters from other movies.

Dumb. Really dumb.

2

Yeagghh the old flipper disk. I had Amadeus like that and hated having to do get up mid way through and turn over the disk. I hate double sided disks because I find invariably one side gets damaged.

I hate the previews that automatically come up every time you start the player!!!
I only need to see it once if ever! Sheesh!

Overly busy menus with spoilers running on them!!

Easter eggs!!! I hate having to hunt down extras… especially if they are good extras. I’m not going to go to the dvd credits menu select left go up type 1012 go right hit enter six times, spin on one foot, lick the screen select title 2 left click up click type 11682 so that I can watch Lucas laugh and say “sucker!”

And how come no mater how careful you are and how new a disk is there always seems to be that one print on it?!

Uggh I hate Mondays

3

You mean this has been done more than once ON PURPOSE?!? Egads! What’s the point?

4

No, the worst, the absoulte worst is any MGM DVD.
Because the sound level on their MGMDVD logo is SO FRICKING LOUD!
AND it is the first thing on the disk so it catches you by suprise.

5

Zebra, that’s my complaint about a Bugs Bunny DVD, except that it’s not just the opening. All of the extras, titles, etc. are mixed far louder than the actual features. I’ll turn my stereo way up to hear a cartoon, then when it returns to the main menu, it’s like a rock concert freak out, man.

6

I just rented Van Helsing and it took me three minutes of moving the pointer between choices on the menu to try to figure out which selection was being pointed at - all the text was glowing and moving about so I didn’t notice the little pointer line for a while. Make the active choice obvious dammit!

7

Before double-layer discs came along the entire movie didn’t always fit on one side of the disc. So, you had to flip in the middle.

I’ve seen TV show collections where both sides of the disc are used too. I guess this is to reduce the number of discs it takes to cover the season.

I’ve also got a few discs where widescreen is on one side and fullscreen on the other.

8

I notice that MGM likes to do this with older movies. My copies of UHF and Bull Durham are like that.

9

When Starship Troopers* was released in the US it was a single sided disc, full of extra features and with 5.1 sound. The British release was a flipper, with 2.0 sound and no extra features. This makes sense in which universe? :confused: :confused: :confused:

*yes, yes, I know

10

Ah, yes, the old DVD-10. You don’t see that much anymore–most flippers now are DVD-18 if anything. I don’t like dual-sided discs and I’ve got quite a few–Blade Runner, Terminator and Terminator 2, one of the Ghostbusters movies. Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and End of Evangelion are kinda like that, but I think they’re actually DVD-9s Manga was too cheap to actually silkscreen.

11

Yeah, I thought we evolved beyond that when Laserdisc was left behind. Except for Star Wars! Han Shot First!

I’ve got a few disks that I’ve ripped and burned to DVD-R to avoid this.

Ripping the disk finds all of the video on a disk, so no frickin’ easter egg hunt. Rush In Rio, I’m looking at you!

Disclaimer: Don’t steal movies. Only use {mumble mumble} software for legitimate backup purposes. No I won’t tell you what I use or how to get it.

12

If you are ever feeling fine and content in your life but wish to change that, just try and navigate the menus on the Memenot: Special Edition DVD.

13

On Warner Brothers’ three volumes of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, the menu from which you select individual cartoons is silent, although the main menu with the “play all” option has sound. Is one of these the collection you refer to, or are you referring either to one of the two discs in the Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection or a public domain cartoon DVD?

MGM eventually changed their DVD logo from the MGM logo on a black screen to a shot of clips from various MGM movies ending with the MGM logo along with brief musicial accompaniment. I’m not sure if the sound level is high on that logo, nor if it is still startling, seeing as the MGM logo itself is, of course, a roaring lion. Nor am I aware if they are still using it, seeing as MGM no longer exists as an independent company.

14

Yeah, I guess you’re right. But still, some of the “in-between” sounds are louder than the actual cartoons, and the commentaries and special features are loud. Since I have an old fashioned stereo, I had to get up off the couch every 2 minutes to readjust the volume. If you can’t just lay on the couch, what’s the point of cartoons?

15

I have West Side Story, the earlier version and several others. The first thing on the screen is the MGM logo and the lion roars like a mo-fo. Then DUH DUN DUN DUN DUNT ROAR — DUNT! Man, it’s loud.
The MGM logo will still be on their stuff for a while along with the Columbia logo I’m sure.

16

That’s the first logo on the black screen I referred to. The six-note stinger is synchronized to the appearance of the letters “MGM DVD,” then another note on fadeout. And it is loud.

17

Regarding the OP: Uh-oh. I just picked up a DVD of Sleepers on sale at Target; haven’t watched it yet. Hope it doesn’t match the one described.

The most consistently annoying feature of the DVD’s I’ve watched would also be one of the easiest to correct: on disk after disk, when you’re navigating through the menus, it’s hard to visually distinguish what item you’ve got selected. Often there’s only a slight change of color or intensity, say from beige to tan. How hard would it be to have a big bright arrow or something clearly showing where you are?

18

The DVD menu for the Spider-Man movie has a surprisingly terrible navigation system. The top three quarters of the screen are taken up by a flashy animation of Spider-Man swinging through the streets, and then on the bottom there four buttons that give you no indication of which one is selected except for a few tiny dots that are barely even noticeable, especially in contrast to all the fast-moving objects on the top of the screen. You’d think with a budget as big as they had for the Spider-Man movie, they could get someone who knew how to make a good menu.

19

Dumb & Dumber does this as well except that, contrary to popular convention the side labelled “Widescreen” actually has the widescreen version on it.

So to play the widescreen version I have to insert the disk so the label as I see it reads “full screen”.