I’m very annoyed by the fact that I spend $30+ to purchase a Blu-ray movie and yet still forced to watched advertisements, trailers, and FBI warnings. Several years ago, SlySoft released a version of AnyDVD that allowed users to overcome these User Prohibited Actions for regular DVDs. Today they announced version 6.4.3.2 of AnyDVD HD that gives users the same features for Blu-ray.
AnyDVD is a program that runs in the background on your Windows computer. When a DVD or Blu-ray disc is inserted, it dynamically re-authors the content of the disk so that when you use your favorite DVD or Blu-Ray software player, all of the annoying “features” are automatically missing — you jump straight to the Main Menu or directly to the start of the movie (you decide.)
Unfortunately, this on one of the few reasons to use a Windows computer as a Blu-ray player. I’m still waiting for a solution to output full-quality HD Audio over an HDMI cable (currently only DVD-quality PCM sound is possible.) I’d also love to see Blu-ray integration into Windows Media Center — you shouldn’t have to launch an external program to play a Blu-ray movie. So unless automatically removing annoying advertisements is your #1 priority, a Sony PS3 is still probably the best current choice for a Blu-ray player.
I don’t care about advertisements/warnings so much since it seems to bring a touch of the movie theater experience home. However, the studios cross a line when they disable fast_forward/next_chapter functions during these promos.
I remember this being a problem in the DVD marketplace. I have not seen it implemented in blu-ray yet.
Blu-ray allows for Prohibited User Actions just the way DVD did. I think with a lot of the early titles, the studios were struggling with the new authoring requirements. I have a strong suspicion that this will become very prevalent for Blu-ray the way it did with DVD.
The worst offenders I’ve seen are kid-focused titles, because parents can’t just put in the disc and have it play. It goes through all the advertisements, then goes to the menu, then requires the parent to work the menu and get the movie playing. Blasting kids with advertisements just seems slimy to me.
The VHS-transfer of the interpol “do not copy” message is also particularly annoying to me. If you’re going to waste my time, at least take the effort to create a clear and readable message.