aww, c'mon, I'm sure the commercials were not too bad :P

Yeah but you can't skip them. They are shoved in your face every damn time I stick that DVD in.

Was this movie purchased new, or as a "previously viewed" title? If it was a brand new, made-for-consumer purchase, that shit is unforgivable. I undertstand that some rental titles have forced commercials, but if you paid for it new, then what the hell?

It was brand spanking new retail copy.

Is it me or are forced commericals only on Region 1 DVDs?

Here, here. This happened to me on another recently purchased DVD. Piss me off!

Bring it back for a refund. Be loud in the store.
Then write the distributor, and the retail outlet your disappointment. (Post your story everywhere).

DVD? Not!

Its NOT digital if you cannot go to any specific track . . .

I am just going to write and call the publisher. The retail store is not responsible for the ads.

Why stop there? Why are we forced to endure the same crap in theatres? I suggest that you rip the DVD and re-encode so you can get rid of the offending shit.

That's what I do with DVDs like this. I rip just the movie, none of the bullshit, and remove any and all feature locks that the jackasses at the studios put on there. It costs a couple of bucks extra to buy a DVD-R, but I get the added bonus of not scratching the hell out of my original when I watch it.

Preach on! I have only seen this so far on DVDs put out by Universal. This needs to stop because it is getting out of hand. Disney puts trailers before the main menu but at least you can skip them. It's bad enough you have to sit through three or four logos on some DVDs. If it made you watch the commercials one time it would be okay, but every single time you put the disc in? Bull crap!

Beware,some pre-release screener DVDs I have watched have commercials that will not even allow you to fast forward, much less skip them. So far I have not seen this feature on actual retail DVDs. But it does not bode well. Either this needs to stop or someone needs to produce a DVD player that will override this garbage. Or else there will be a whole lot of fameassers for the folks at Universal.

Jeff-
It is really difficult to burn a DVD and retain all of the special features and menus. Could you please tell us how to do so?

Hey I found a petition. Everyone and their mom needs to sign it.

http://www.petitiononline.com/ForceAds/petition.html

Here's a trick. Before or during the FBI warning, hit stop on your DVD player. Then hit menu. You may need to hit play again depending on your player. Don't let those nasty ads start! This trick should get you right to the root menu or the start of the movie. I haven't tried this with Lost in Translation but it seems to do the trick with other DVDs. It not only lets you bypass those godawful ads but the warnings and logos too. Shhhhhhh!

I heard Disney used to do the same forced ads on their DVDs but due to public backlash they added the option to skip them.

Pete, I never burn the menus or special features, just the movie itself. Most of the movies are larger than 4 Gig and take some compression, so I try to reduce the compression amount by leaving off everything else on the DVDs. Hopefully when we consumers get dual-layer burners early next year this won't be a problem and we can burn movies, special features, etc, and just strip off anything we don't want and leave everything we do. Do you have a burner? Shoot me an email and maybe we can trade tips. I know there's a ton of crap to know, and I've only managed to scratch the surface, so I'm always wanting to know how everyone else gets things done.

Forced ads are ridiculous. Come on, if someone's boguht the damn DVD already, odds are he's going to see the trailers at least once--and if he absolutely wasn't going to, forcing him to watch them in fast forward is unlikely to generate much goodwill towards the movies being advertised! It's a pure head-in-ass idea.

Last night, I was severely irritated when I saw that I had to FAST-FORWARD through all those previews just to get to the root menu, too. So glad someone else noticed how lame this is too. I am very annoyed that I'll have to do this each time--maybe if it wins Oscars, they'll re-release with awards and without trailers. Then, I can sell this one on ebay and buy the update.

Weird. I rented this on the weekend, and I didn't get any pre-movie ads -- just went straight to Scarlet's nice bum. Maybe a different pressing for Canada!?

Fucking right. I was sitting in the movie theaters waiting for the movie to start, and some big bastard comes on screen and says not to pirate movies (thus removing commercials...ads and the like). I think to myself, "fuck you". Then I say to the people who I went with, "fuck him". These god damned advertisements are one more reason to download pirated movies. Don't they make enough money already?

Well there should be a limit and a happy medium. Making movies are hard and expensive. Especially for Indy and I have no problem paying for a movie ticket or DVD but I want a level of respect from the movie company and I do not want my eyeball hijacked because they have a over eager marketing department who wants to skull fuck the viewer with more ads.

DVD's should be designed to go directly from start to the movie, skipping the menu and all the stupid gimmicky features. Speaking as a parent, waiting for a movie to start so a screaming child will shut up and watch his movie. I must say this is an obvious navigational must. I now skip kids movies from companies I know that do this.

Second, speaking as a person with a new DVD player and a broken remote or a remote with a dead battery, (that controls all menu features) requiring menu navigation to watch the movie is just plain stupid.

Just push play and begin the movie ass wipe!

Dude I did not put commercials there. I am just as pissed.

Jake I not only agree with you but have been doing alot of research on the subject and strongly am against it. I now am righting a 10 page essay for my digital media class at UC Santa Cruz and am about to give an oral presentaion on the fact that restrcitive prgramming is a direct violation of the first emedndament which states that "the purpose of freedom of speech is to promote a democratic culture .. in which indiviuals have a fair oppertunity to participate in forms of meaning and constitute them as indiviuals" (Balkin 3) Anyway I'm using Lost in Translation as my main evidence and I happend to find your argumemnt I'm planning on using you as one of my internet sources so that I can get a consumer perspective.

Thanks and lets keep fighting this
aparently its working because one year after the relase of Lost in tranlation Focus Features released Eternal Sunshine: Spotless mind and the now have the option for the user to press the menu button and skip the forced commericils.

Laterz

Max

Cool man. Email me a copy of your paper when you are done with it and I would love to post it. Hey you should include my warning lable

I use my 128X fast forward to get past it when I want to watch my damn movie.

It is incomprehensible that some publishers would try to force you to watch commercials after you have already spent $24.00 or whatever on a DVD!

I bough the full season of the TV show Hammer and it was the best DVD set I have ever purchased. Not because of the shows but the DVD.

You put the Hammer DVD in and it goes straight to the movie, awesome.

My wife bough one of the Baby Einstein DVD for our child. Guess what, from the time you put the DVD in to the time your kid actually gets to watch the show is about 2 minutes.

Needless to say we will never buy a Baby Einstein product again.

The sad part of this is consumers will continue to buy movies regardless if the have 10 minutes of commercials!

To HELL with these stupid companies that force crap onto the consumer!

Let's bring a class action against the DVD
content producers and player manufacturers.
Write me if you want to join.