Dreamworks DVDs suck

Time to rant about Dreamworks DVDs. We just picked up Shrek the Third, and although not as bad as Shrek 2, it is still annoying.

My biggest complaint about Shrek 2 is that, when it starts, it launches this really long preview bit with Ben Stiller about Madagascar. But the DVD is authored such that you cannot press the skip-forward button or the menu button to skip it! Fortunately, fast-forward is not disabled. But it still annoys me that I can't instantly skip over it. I've seen this stupid documentary enough. I even have the movie on DVD; I don't need or want to see a promo to learn about a movie I've already seen.

Shrek the Third isn't as bad, although you do have to sit through the Dreamworks logo twice before getting to the menu, and the three previews can be skipped with the skip-forward feature (but not the menu button — a common annoyance with many DVDs).

If possible, I'd love to get a DVD player that does not respect the flags that say you cannot use features of the DVD player, like fast-forward, chapter skip, and menu. Nothing irritates me more than being forced to sit through logos and previews and copyright warnings. In fact, nothing makes me want to break copyright more than being forced to stare at the notice for several seconds every time I want to watch the movie, with every button press greeted with a "feature disabled" alert until the words are burned into my screen.

I wish I knew what this fascination was with the motion picture industry in taking away basic features from people, like DVD specs that include "do not allow" flags and TiVos that can't fast-forward through commercials. It's like they feel they have to balance their entertainment product with annoyance.