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Computer: Format
Video Skip Information   (+3, -1)  [vote for, against]
Meta information to allow you to skip non-content

When watching a series of episodes, I hate having to get up to skip the titles, the 'previously on' and sometimes the preview of the next episode.

I suggest that a video format such as .mkv allow markers to be used to indicate where different elements of content start. Alternatively, it could be a separate file. A suitably advanced player or plugin could then allow you to choose what you want to watch.

A more advanced version could help with watching porn using many more markers to indicate the activity taking place.
-- marklar, Oct 17 2011

An alternative Just_20the_20movie
[MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 17 2011]

Didn't somebody recently propose a meta-function allowing you to skip all the previews and garbage you have to sit through before a DVD menu?

I sympathize with you. It's especially annoying when the show's theme sequence is part of the first chapter of the episode rather than encoded separately.
-- Alterother, Oct 17 2011


//skip all the previews and garbage you have to sit through before a DVD menu//

Well you can do that on a computer, so you could make a DVD player that does it.
-- marklar, Oct 17 2011


They can, but they won't. Vested interests.

The trick is to use a computer to rip the DVD to the hard drive, chop of all the garbage at the front, then write it out to a DVD-R. You can even blank the region info and the anti-copy at the same time.

Get a machine set up to do that, and it becomes a quick and easy process.
-- 8th of 7, Oct 17 2011


Why would a DVD player manufacturer have any interest in Warner Bros. adverts?

Your process sounds somewhat more involved than a bit of fast forwarding.
-- marklar, Oct 17 2011


// Why would a DVD player manufacturer have any interest in Warner Bros. adverts ? //

DVD player manufacturers want to sell the players they make.

Consumers buy DVD players to watch TV shows and movies released by the networks and studios, like Sony, WB, whatever.

These organisations wish to preserve their intellectual property rights in the product. If purchasers could easily skip over the copyright messages, this would not suit them at all, bless their great big overstuffed wallets.

So the deal is that all DVD players have to incorporate MacroVision copying protection, without which they would not get a licence to use the DVD standard, and if the DVD standard did not include this requirement then the studios would not issue their movies on DVD.

Since the protection has now been cracked, it's all pretty pointless, but it does stop Joe Public from quickly and easily copying DVDs.

However, even unsophisticated pc users can copy DVDs now, and the pirates have been at it for years.

Does that answer your question ?
-- 8th of 7, Oct 17 2011


Can we interest you in our latest DVD offerings <link>?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 17 2011


That's the one I was thinking of. I knew it was pretty recent.
-- Alterother, Oct 18 2011


//all DVD players have to incorporate MacroVision copying protection// [8th of 7] Isn't it that without the MacroVision software, the player could not play the DVD? Anyway, I thought there were now open source versions to decrypt DVDs so anyone can make a player.

I could of course be wrong, I know very little about this kind of thing.
-- marklar, Oct 18 2011


I was thinking more of downloaded files anyway. In that case it would make the download smaller if the extraneous bits were removed or included in separate files in the torrent, which you could take or leave.

However, sometimes I want to see the credits and find out who played Minion 3, that guy we saw in thingy, or I might need to be reminded what happened in the previous episode. Sometimes it's worth watching the titles (Psych's variations for example). It's just when I feel like a bit of a marathon that it gets annoying.
-- marklar, Oct 18 2011



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