7/25/2013

How to Stop Previews from Playing on Your DVDs

It is really annoying when you buy or rent a DVD, play it, and get forced to watch a bunch of previews. You may try to press the Menu button on your remote, but that function is often disabled by the code on the DVD. You may try to press the Skip button, but that function may be disabled as well. After pressing all of the buttons you can think of, you realize the DVD has hijacked your DVD player, and you are being forced to play content before you can watch your movie.

Adding insult to injury, the forced DVD content is not just limited to previews. Previews are at least somewhat interesting the first one or two times you see them. The really annoying thing is the public service announcements telling you that you are criminal if you download movies, and you are no better than a purse-snatcher or a car thief. Really? Why are they calling you a criminal? You paid for the DVD. If you downloaded the movie, you would not have to watch the annoying and accusatory PSA. Oh, and how about those annoying Truth PSAs that finally break that big secret that cigarettes are bad for people? It is good that news is finally getting out.

The worst, however, is the stupid commercials. The movie industry is normally forcing desperate Blu-ray propaganda on DVD watchers, and sometimes you have to deal with those annoying HDNet commercials and commercials for new shows airing on obscure cable channels. If you wanted Blu-rays you would have started buying them at least three years ago when they were in style.  If you wanted to watch TV, why would you be watching DVDs?  The ad content is wrong for the audience and of little interest.  It is really all just a pain in the butt.

If you are tired of that forced DVD content, here is what you can do. If all of your other tricks fail and you find your DVD is forcing content on you, just follow these steps on your DVD player remote.

  1. Press the Stop button.
  2. Press the Stop button a second time.
  3. Wait a second.
  4. Press Play.

Your DVD should restart at the main menu, or the movie should begin automatically. This will not work on every DVD or every DVD player, but you will find it works most of the time. So, there you go. Press Stop, Stop, and then Play.  Start skipping through all of that forced content, and enjoy your movie.