My biggest concern is that this migh kill off the bonus content entirely. I imagine that only a small number of fans actually care about this stuff, and that their numbers aren’t significant enough to really drive sales in the way Hollywood thinks it does. They could decide it just isn’t worth it anymore. Of course they tend to overvalue all their content, so that may not happen for a while.
I’d guess that exposing more casual watchers to the opportunity to experience the nerdy stuff helps to create movie fans, and narrative films and tv are far from the only entertainment choice that people have these days.
If you’re correct, then I’d expect the bonus content to be moved into premium priced collector’s edition releases.
I’m actually happy to see the bonus content go from rental editions of movies. I rarely have the patience to sit through it, but my wife loves to watch it and would prefer that I watch it with her. Not having it present in the first place allows the argument to work out in my favor for a change.
I do agree with everyone else here about unskippable trailers and ads at the beginning of discs. Their presence has nearly completely killed my interest in watching movies at all.
My aunt/uncle are deaf and this is their major complaint about the service. I believe organizations for the deaf are still consistently demanding Netflix do something about that.
You don’t get to select sound options, and I have no idea if they are all the same, or are different per movie. The aspect ratio changes depending on the movie/tv show, but you don’t get to choose it/specify it ahead of time, it is what it is.
They’re working on it; the problem is re-encoding it into all the content, and then making sure that works across the various player devices. Probably PCs first (most upgradeable platform), consoles later, and set top boxes last (if at all).
This is a longstanding policy with Warner Bros. – any film that was 1.85:1 in the theaters becomes 1.78:1/16:9 on DVD/BD. Other studios do it too (even Criterion have done it a few times) but not on a consistent basis. You don’t hear a lot of bitching about it because they usually don’t cut off anything (they just open the mattes a little) and the variance is still less than what you get in theaters. Similarly 1.37:1 films are almost always 1.33:1/4:3 on video, although this is changing with Blu-ray.
Edit: I noticed the bottom of the info-graphic has been cut off. This is by design to somehow discourage people from pirating the cartoon and pay for the full edition.
It certainly does. Ripping while I make food/prepare snacks means I can just sit down and watch the actual movie. After doing this a few times, you know the right choices to get the right files.
I’m not re-encoding here. Just trying to watch a DVD without the bullshit.
Err, I understand the sentiment, but the logistics still don’t make sense. You could hit the fast forward button a couple times to keep it going to the menu while you prepare whatever. Or just but the disc in and go do whatever anyways.
