My wife and I rented two movies from Blockbuster this past weekend.
Whoever is in charge of producing the DVD’s has now decided that we cannot skip the trailers or commercials by hitting the DVD menu or the skip button on the DVD player remote.
They have crammed each trailer with just about every important scene from the movie. If I haven’t watched the movie yet I would prefer a teaser not a spoiler. If I have seen the movie, I’d like to skip the trailer. Also, If you rent more than one of this weeks releases you are going to see the same trailers again.
Now I don’t mind a little advertising but there is a limit. My wife and I timed how long it took before the menu finally came up. Below are the two movies we rented and the time it took for the trailers and advertisements to play out:
“Whiteout“: Fifteen Minutes.
“The Hangover“: Sixteen Minutes.
Fifteen minutes drove us well past being annoyed and far into being angered and we are never doing this again.
This is not the case with all rental companies. At least it isn’t yet. A friend rented “The Hangover” from Netflix. She said that she wasn’t forced to watch the trailers on her rental.
I e-mailed this complaint to Blockbuster customer service. They were very responsive. I got this reply within an hour.
“Thank you for providing the account information for speedy escalation of your concern.
I have forwarded this issue on your behalf to the District Manager and hope to have it resolved for you as quickly as possible. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
Should you have further concerns, please let me know.”
Quick reply but no answer. I have yet to hear whether this is a Blockbuster policy, if it will continue, if it has been forced on them by the distributors or if it was an error in the production of the DVD’s.
I will not be renting from Blockbuster until I know it will not happen again. I will be using pay per view or some other rental service. I hope the cable company has not been forced to turn off the DVR buttons while the trailers are on.
This better not be the case for purchased DVD’s. I will not be forced to wait fifteen minutes each time I watch a movie that I have purchased?
I guess that I will have to go back to watching TV, reading or actually talking to my family. I just had a scary thought. No, not the part about talking to my family. Do you think that the Kindle is a conspiracy. When paper books have been replaced, will we be forced to watch commercials before we can read? Someone call Jesse Ventura!
I’ll let you know what Blockbuster has to say about this when I get an answer. -Tim
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The same thing now happens with Netflix rentals. It’s really annoying. Especially when you are limited on time to watch a film such as later at night and you want to get to bed. Or if your DVDs sometimes lock up or have problems and you need to eject the disc. Then you have to watch 10 minutes of previews again when you’re halfway through the movie. I can handle it just not so long.
Thanks a lot to Dan for the tips. Gonna try those next time.
DVD from Blockbuster stopped playing sound so I had eject and clean the disc and start from scratch. I have to watch the trailers again. Really? This is nuts. IT makes me miss the days of VHS when you could just rewind or fast forward as you wanted to. Damn frustrating.
Tim being forced to watch commercials is definitely frustrating and you’re not the only one angry about it my friend. Thanks for posting. I’m going back to books.
Need to see a doctor? Next time your in for a visit, just check out how much propaganda the prescription drug companies have brought to the office.
Lets go to the grocery store and watch a few commercials while we’re in line…wait I think Wal-Mart is already on to this on.
How about buy gas? hmmm , your going to be standing there so why don’t we just force you to watch a little commercial or two while you’re at the pump.
I for one think the world is going “commercial” crazy.
I was trying to watch a movie tonight from Netflix (who funny enough is actually running a ad right on this blog) when I figured out, I couldn’t get around being forced to watch the commercials (trailers to movies that I’ve already seen) and decided to simply eject and return.
I also just close my account.
Netflix is no different that Blockbuster. They both suck. If enough people let them know how much we appreciate them appreciating us…maybe they’ll get the message. Thanks again for the little place to rant.
Actually, Netflix and Blockbuster do not control the ads on the discs, so neither suck for this reason. They’re put there by the studio. The same ads will be there if you purchase the movie at Best Buy. You didn’t show Netflix anything. All you really accomplished was removing the least expensive way to watch a movie from your options. But if you really are going to move on to books, then good for you! It’s the more intelligent option anyway.
Although, I find myself wondering, if you can find the time for 5 mintues of trailers, where do you find the time for a whole book?
@Paul
Are you serious with that question or are you just a netflix cheerleader? It has nothing to do with ‘having the time’ and everything to do with control over your time. When you read ‘an entire book’ you are completely in control of the time you spend on the activity. If you are forced to watch 5 minutes of trailers that you don’t care to, you have no control over the time.
I can’t believe you actually had to have the explained to you.
So, the book comment was your take-away? How rich. And as I said, it has nothing to do with Netflix or Blockboster. Now, even Comcast On-Demand forces you to watch commercials for FOX and NBC programming because the network demanded it. Nothing to do with Comcast, yet people are upset with Comcast. Wise up sir, and direct your anger at the appropriate party, otherwise you just make a fool of yourself.
@Paul
You asked a question and I answered it. How rich that you needed it explained in the first place. Also, you are truly naive if you don’t believe Netflix gets anything from the studios for those ads and foolish if you think rental and retail DVD’s are identical. If you insist on those fallacies, you can’t be reasoned with.
You win, sir. Recommend you never rent or purchase a DVD again. Problem solved for you.
Thank you, but it really wasn’t a contest. Your comments run the gamut from vacuous to inaccurate. I’m actually not even sure why’d you post here at all.
You sure are the clever one. You seem to know so much yet offer no evidence. Since you like to read so much, how about you educate youself on the Netflix/Blockbuster SUBSCRIPTION based business model. Do you really believe that the very content providers who demand ever increasing fees from these rental companies are in turn paying them for using DVDs with their ads and trailers? If you want something to read, go to the SEC website and download yourself a 10-Q from one of these companies and kindly identify the revenue stream originating from studio or network. And, how many different versions of the physical media do you really believe exist? Do you understand the concept of piece price increase with proliferation? You question why I post here, meanwhile you see fit to chime in and attack me at a personal level, yet offer no substance or fact based argument supporting whatever your position is in the first place. Attacking me is fine, as I could care less what an ignorant “joe” such as yourself thinks of me, but if you’re trying to convey any kind of point at all I suggest you do so with facts to avoid looking futher like the fool.
There were some good, and helpful posts here. Unfortunately, this thread has become a forum for slinging no value added nonsense by lesser sophisitacted people with a missguided axe to grind with rental companies. Sling away amongst yourselves, folks.
I sent a letter to two major home video distributors today (Warner Bros and Alliance), asking for info about this new trend in distributor control over playback, and noting the negative impact on customers.
–PS
Paul/wayninja…Consider focusing the topic and the sprit of the comment guidelines, and things are less likely to degenerate into personal insults. Life is too short to fight amongst ourselves. Sarcasm just does not work online, when you can’t see the twinkle in the other person’s eye
http://brusimm.com/comment-rules/
Hey GANG!!! This is the site owner… since Tim wrote this article, I don’t get the emails that alert me to the comments… they go to the author.
Bottom line… comment rules say play nice. This site is about the freedom to speak your mind and not worry about being attacked. I don’t want to spam anyone… but don’t try me. I’d rather have two GREAT commenters than 10 nasty ones.
Thanks for coming by. Now let it go and focus on the subject at hand.
The management.
I agree. The subject is that you can’t skip the trailers on DVD Rentals. I really don’t think the answer to that problem is to stop renting DVD’s. I’m also not sure what comcast has to do with it since they don’t rent DVD’s.
I am just interested in debunking inaccurate information. There is a difference between rental and retail DVD’s. Period.
I read this post while I was unable to skip or fast forward the trailers from a newly released redbox movie. So, it seems that people have reported this behavior from Blockbuster, Netflix, and redbox rentals.
I say, we just sit back idly and hope that whoever is pushing this new trend just decides to stop (jk).
This is so frustrating. I never watched trailers until our right to fast forward was taken away. Is this their way of punishing us for renting instead of purchasing? I usually barely have time to fit a movie in…now its even harder with an extra 10-15min. tacked on. I guess I’ll watch fewer movies if that is what they want.
WRONG! It is wrong to have a DVD ignore your remote’s commands until you have satisfied the GREEDY corporate moguls by watching their ads. APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE ABOUT MY LENGTHY RANT THAT FOLLOWS. We rented HANNA (Universal Studios) from Red Box. Could not skip the trailer promos regardless of what kind of “moves” I put on my remote. Even tried using the posted tips, no help. Called Red Box to express my displeasure about being forced to wait 11 minutes before we were allowed to see the movie we wanted. I mentioned they should have some clout in making the studios or publishers of the DVDs make viewing all promos optional not manditory. Basically my conerns fell on deaf ears and at the end of the conversation with the cust serv rep I was told in a slightly sarcastic tone “Red Box is not going out of business to accomodate people for this type of problem”. I remained civil, said goodbye and hung up. I realize it is not the fault of Red Box for this issue however when enough people stop renting or begin closing their accounts maybe Red Box or other rental businesses will help exert pressure on the studios and DVD makers to make promos an optional view. It is a roll of the dice when you rent a DVD now whether or not it’s promos can be skipped. I know getting the government involved is not always the best thing but maybe it is time to force the studios and DVD makers to indicate (truth in labeling) the duration of promos and whether or not they are an optional view. Not disclosing if promos are optional before purchase or rental prevents the consumer from making an informed decision and places consumers at an unfair disadvantage. Big businesses are taking more liberties especially when it comes to advertising as in more commercials on TV less program content, internet videos and now they plague our DVDs. A young adult used an online petition to force our nation’s largest bank to cancel charging it’s customers $5 per month for simply using their ATM cards then there should be some way to let the studios and DVD makers know they will hear from consumers if they continue to force us to watch their self promoting advertisements. Thank you for reading my message.
Apparently I forgot/overlooked there are multiple Dan entries on this site. The comments posted for Dec 29, 2011 at 1:01 AM by “Dan” is not related to any previous Dan comments before this date. Sorry about any confusion I may have caused.
I consider this problem more insidious that most of the other posters.
They have managed to create a DVD that breaks the functionality of my DVD player. Software that intentionally breaks the functionality of my machine has another name: a virus.
There should be a good market for DVD/Blueray players that defeat this crap.
Dangerous words Aaron, with citizens united, the stance of Apple on jailbreaking, rampant piracy, SOPA, and various other movements towards protecting the rights of intellectual property holders I’m sure it won’t be long until finding a way to circumvent the previews is tantamount to theft as well.
Beaides that, I don’t mind watching the previews anyway. They are usually composed of the most exciting parts of the movies they preview which generally on average makes the previews better than the movie that follows them anyway.
It is absolutely a fact that Netflix and Comcast sign contracts with the studios and networks. The networks and studios are the ones doing it, not Neflix and Blockbuster and Comcast. It’s a fact that the content creators are squeezing everyone. The advertisements are all for the creators products and don’t benefit Netflix and Comcast in the least (although I have other beefs with those two for other things.)
But the problem I have – which is even worse than watching them once (I can use the bathroom or make popcorn for that) – but having to watch them over and over because my laptop shut down and I never finished watching it! Now I have to watch the same damn ones a second time. And a third. And maybe a fourth. Just because I sometimes watch the movies in chunks. Now that really sucks!
So glad to find other like minded people who also feel like they’ve stepped into some communistic twilight zone. There is something wrong when the world of advertising tries to encroach and infringe on your personal time and and personal enjoyment without offering you so much as a choice. Sure, its only 11-15 minutes, but its 11-15 minutes of MY time that I would like to spend the way I want to spend, not forced to watch trailers and commercials–mind you, the very same trailers that appear on every disk that is released within the same time frame. It is such infuriating bulls[expletive removed]. I’m a mother of a toddler and I work. I don’t have the PATIENCE let alone the time to plop down on my couch with my glass of wine in my very limited time frame before I reach that point where I can barely keep my eyes open to sit through this crap. We should have the right to skip through these things as we see fit. I am so fed up with being force fed commercials. You can’t watch an internet news story without having to sit through them. They’re on monitors at the gas station. They’re popping up in my google email side bar, its just TOO MUCH! This has to stop! Who do we have to contact about this!!!
Rant Over.
Just had my first experience with this, on a Blockbuster Express rental. I guess I was lucky — I only had to watch only about 5 minutes of trailers for movies I never in a million years would want to rent or buy. What I can’t figure out is whom to complain to, since so many different companies take credit for the movie and/or DVD! If this happens again, I’ll try more key combinations, but I can tell you that no amount of pressing top menu, next track, fast forward, or any combination thereof worked.
Some of my old posts were deleted for some reasoning. But anyway Aerin, it gets very aggravating when you have just enough time to relax and watch a movie before going to bed to start the grind all over again, then being subjected to 20 minutes worth of trailers that you’re not interested in. The problem is that you can’t really do anything about it, other than not watch the movie. If I had the money, I would invest in a new brand of dvd machines that give the user full control over the cd. I think they would sell like hot cakes =)
Just throwing this out there guys:
I don’t believe any blame should be directed at either Blockbuster or Netflix or any company that is renting discs for that matter. The trailers appear on the movies that you rent and/or buy because the studio producing the Blu-ray/DVD has placed them there, not because of a rental company. They don’t have control over this. They purchase the discs from the studio/manufacturer, they do not produce the discs themselves.
Furthermore, while I do notice that some discs have an overwhelming amount of trailers in front of the featured movie, I’ve always been able to skip them. Yea, hitting “menu” does nothing but I simply click the “next chapter” button on my remote and it skips past the trailer. I usually have to do this for each individual trailer but it might take me 30 seconds to do it. I’ve never once encountered any disc, whether it was for purchase or rented by Netflix, Blockbuster or Redbox, that I was unable to skip the trailers. I have a large collection and continually rent discs on top of that so my viewpoint comes from vast experience with discs from lots of different studios.
I haven’t owned a tv in almost 2 years but I decided to get one last week. Naturally, I restarted up my Netflix account. Not being able to skip through 16:08 of previews before Contagion infuriated me. I know there are bigger issues in life, but that was 16 minutes I didn’t want to waste of my life watching terrible trailers! Man, I sort of regret getting a tv again. I don’t need this stress in my life.
Just rented Hanna and am sitting through annoying previews. This is such a waste of time. You play good money for a DVD or pay to rent a DVD and they force feed ads to you.
I’m cancelling my subscription for Netflix tomorrow. I’d rather pay for a torrent site download that cuts this crap. The DVD industry is not going to last much longer.
You guys seem to be missing the fact the NEUTERED “rental copies (unskippable ads+trailers, no chapters, etc is a CHOICE blockbuster/netflix makes. They can offer full release or rentals. I find it strange about the time BB offers to sell the old rental to you, they opt for the neutered copies, who in their right mind would buy this crap? BB was so good in past with unrated/SE/DE, etc, now we are stuck with watching rental neuters. Remember BB/NF are the studios bit@hes, I know for a fact BB “helped” kill HD-DVD.
Now the latest (NF admits it/BB claims NO) studios delay release of new releases (up to like a month) to give us “a chance to buy the dvds”. Are the rental companies really this stupid? Why would they go along with this? If I own the full release, why would I EVER rent the neutered rental copy? So who would need a rental company?
Furthermore, mentioned in this article “The Hangover“: Sixteen Minutes. Probably a lot of people use rentals to decide if they want to own… Seems to me if you rented this release and were not up on all the latest BS the studios are pulling, wouldn’t the problems on this DVD make you think twice about owning it?
I posted on Dec 29 2011 as “Dan” however since there other Dans, I am renaming myself as “Dan-O” to save confusion. I hope Mr. Bruce S. or his assistant catches my change and it is OK to do this. I realize this blog is devoted to Unable To Skip Commercials On DVDs however I would like to bring another “pesty and extremely annoying” subject to the table in hopes that Mr. Simmons may want to entertain and start another “captivating” BruSimm crowd pleaser type blog. If not, just delete my following carping exercise. I am speaking of the increasing encroachment by TV commercials and network self-promos into program content. From what I have learned childrens’ show that are a hour in duration can only contain ten (10) minutes of commercials per FCC regulations. For us grown ups there is no limit for this same time period! Recently out of curiousity I noted how many commercials and their aggregate running time was for a popular midweek prime time show that ran for 60 minutes. There were 46 ads which consumed 26 minutes of the hour. If memory serves me correctly it used to be about 10 to 15 minutes of every hour were commercials on some rare occasions there might be 20 minutes for ads. Today they are approaching parity for program content and commercials. Yes the commercials do pay for the programs and the news and in most cases one could not fault the networks for having operating expenses and making a profit, but as consumers we are paying more for less content viewing time today. Another irritating move the networks use while you are watching a program, is to distract your attention with visual pop ups of self serving promos. Not to be forgotten is another technique used to garner focus from the viewers as a commericial begins is by TURNING UP THE VOLUME! In case you were trying to snooz off or were distracted by some activity nearby…the networks want to ensure you don’t miss their commerical. Although we may not be winning the war overall as consumers the volume battle in this situation is ours to win by simply changing channels or hitting the remote MUTE or even the OFF button to avoid their audio assualt. As irritating and annoying as these tactics and increasing commercials are, there is no easy solution to reforming the way TV networks do business unless there is major revolt by TV subscribers who are willing to quit watching their favorite shows or by shelling out big dollars to be ad free or have fewer commercials. The future of consumer TV does not look promising as far as commercials are concerned.
Hey Dan-O, aka Dan…
I like where your head is and I may have touched on it in one of my other posts where I chat about how the nets rake in $10 to $15 BILLION per season from advertisers. I don’t think the general public can absorb those kinds of costs.
Have you ever seen the public television channels that are subscriber-supported? That’s what TV viewers are willing to support, and it ain’t enough to support the millions-per-episode wages actors muster.
Also… here’s something I wrote back in 2010… both of these subjects are worth a new look-see. Thanks for chiming in Dan…
http://brusimm.com/television-ads-are-taking-over-our-tv-hours/
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You’re welcome Bruce. I visited the BruSimm site using the link provided and discovered that you had generated a more thorough expose on what I briefly touched upon in my previous post. It appears I arrived after the train left the station in this case and “preaching to the choir” as well (lol). Anyway I’m glad your “BruSimm” Unable To Skip Ads On DVD Rentals site exists to help people unload their rage or frustration towards the “ads in your face” offending sources. I strongly believe the studios are the guilty party here since they control the content and production of the DVDs. DVD renters and buyers have legimate reasons to be angry whenever the studios force them to become unwilling audiences for their self serving promos. Also the studios are in crunch mode trying to convert as many older movies from film to widescreen and Blu-Ray ad filled DVDs as they can to keep the movies for sale market in the green per se and not the environmental kind of green either. Another thought comes to mind as the DVD slowly moves closer towards oblivion as did vinyl records and tape cassettes, all future movie streaming websites can virtually be guaranteed to be under control of the studios and/or their collobarators to ensure consumers will still receive their fair share of self serving promos and paid ads. As with DVDs the downloaded content will likely be formatted so these ads cannot be skipped. It is extremely important almost a moral imperative, depending on how you look at it, that consumers need to make choices today whether or not to continue renting or buying DVDs that do not allow promos/ads to be skipped. It will only get worse, who knows they may start adding a forced intermission halfway through the main feature just to accomodate (make more room for) the growing number of promos added to each newly released DVD. Just as the networks are to television, the studios are to DVDs. In both worlds of consumer entertainment media, ads and promos will continue to plague our viewing enjoyment. How much is it worth to viewers to reduce or eliminate them entirely? Unfortunately as Bruce pointed out in his previous post, casts and networks cost lots of big dollars. Not sure how the rental cost or sale price of a DVD is determined when you factor in cast and studio expenses along with income from theater receipts. Regardless whether you rent or buy a DVD or just want to watch some “tube” without commercials or promos, this preference could get expensive very quickly making these forms of entertainment almost a luxury. No quick fixes here. Thank you for reading my comments.
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