written by Mike Shea on 4 April 2000
Here is a letter I recently sent to Disney regarding the Sixth Sense DVD. Please let the studios know that DVD is not a forced medium, it is an interactive one and should be treated as such.I just wanted to applaud you on your efforts with the DVD version of The Sixth Sense but I had a couple of suggestions. First of all, your attention to the details of the disc including directors commentary, deleted scenes and 16x9 enhanced picture were the reason I purchased a movie that I would have otherwise just rented. Please keep up this high quality product and I will continue to be a customer for life. One problem though, the idea of forcing previews at the beginning of the film was not a good one. DVD is a much more interactive medium that does not lend itself well to the VHS habit of putting previews at the beginning. A much better idea is to move the previews to the special features so that the user may watch it at his or her leisure. The fact that you don't allow someone to skip the previews by hitting the menu button is also very dangerous. Had I not been able to skip them with the track skip button, the disc would have been unwatchable. While I very much like the idea of having a library of previews available, I certainly shouldn't be forced to watch them. In this day in age of coke and Nintendo ads at the theater before a feature, I can only hope that you see the difference in these mediums and choose to give more freedom to your customer instead of your advertisement branch. Aside from this issue, you have an excellent product. Keep up the good work!
From: bakes ( baker_9900@yahoo.com ) on 24 June 2002
Subject: Passive Ads
Instead of being afraid...SPANK and other advertising media specialists...should reconsider their hanging on to an archaine methodology and look for new avenues. If they came up with better ways to advertise to us instead of detracting from our experience maybe we would not complain or boycot an undesirable practice. I.E.- I do not ever purchase or even browse a single popup window that ever comes up on the net, they are just way too invasive. In fact I go out of my way to avoid any positive reinforcement of this type of behavior.
From: rob robinson ( rrobinson@seveninteractive.com ) on 21 August 2001
Subject: rental unit
perhaps the solution is easy- keep the previews skippable in the consumer version, and make a seperate rental copy that has 'business model friendly" content in place at the beginning.
NOTE- by know means am i endorsing compromising the sell through market in favor of giving Blockbuster a more rental tailored product, but if the studio is worried about revenue (which i don't see why they shpuld as folks are shelling out $20+, but thats beside the point i suppose)....
maybe the BEST solution would be for studios to put some sweet DTS/DD enocoded previews of upcoming releases on their discs. Make these things demo reel grade material that we WANT to watch, instead of trying to force feed the pan and scan dockers ads down our throats.
add value, not ads. we paid for it.
From: Grant ( liquid@grantics.com ) on 13 June 2000
Subject: Ads suck
I totally agree with you, Mike. When I pay money to watch a movie in the theater or when I buy a DVD, I don't want to be force-fed commercials. If I have to watch commercials I shouldn't have to pay! (That's how something called commercial television works.)
Bottom line is it's fucking annoying, and I'll be sure to steer clear of Disney DVDs until they stop this practice.
From: Mike ( mshea@liquidtheater.com ) on 8 April 2000
Subject: Forced ads on DVDs
I am not sure I understand. These ads are ON DVD. That is the problem. In a medium where I very well may have watched the ads on my time, I was forced to watch them every time I put in the disc. That is what I am fighting against.
From: spank ( spank@thecheese.com ) on 8 April 2000
Subject: Passive Advert
The downside of passive adverts is they only reach the market that is interested in them. The demographic for DVDs will see DVD ads. The problem is that does not reach the non DVD demographic that can be persuaded to buy DVD stuff - but only if they see the ad. Passive advertising may increase market share w/i a market - it will not expand the market.
From: Mike ( mshea@liquidtheater.com ) on 8 April 2000
Subject: Passive vs. Active Advertising
What the traditional advertisers don't understand is that in this active information age, they have to break out of the "they are all couch potatos so we will feed them ads" instead of the "wow, we can actually get folks to seek out our ads!" philosophies. DVD, like the internet is an active medium. Unlike VHS and movies in the theater, we are given many options for what we wish to do with a DVD. I would have probably watched the previews to the movies (they were actually good previews, just nothing I wanted to be FORCED to watch) if they were in the special features section of the DVD, but I feel invaded upon if I am forced to sit through the same five previews over and over again every time I want to watch the movie. If it only happened once, that would be one thing, but for it to happen constantly is really a problem. The old way of advertisement needs to die and they need to start to find out what selective advertisment can really do.
From: spank ( spank@thecheese.com ) on 8 April 2000
Subject: Advertising
No forced previews = No advertising
No advertising = lower quality DVDs
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From: Poker ( dwphen@yahoo.com ) on 7 November 2003
Subject: Poker
and do some Online Poker
http://www.besthandever.com