3 ms·

I remember discussing with friends of mine whether or not it would be reasonable to have a DVD player that, upon encountering unskippable content, automatically

by gchpaco 15y ago

I remember discussing with friends of mine whether or not it would be reasonable to have a DVD player that, upon encountering unskippable content, automatically skipped it. None of us could come up with any difficulty there.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
zoul 15y ago
As far as I know DVD is a licensed technology and the companies that produce DVD players probably have some draconic measures in the license to prevent them from doing this. I think there used to be some players with an easily accessible factory settings, and the info about how to tweak the factory settings conveniently leaked, but I’m not sure how that worked in the end.
- nodata 15y ago
  They can't use the DVD logo if they do that. That's it iirc.
  - papercrane 15y ago
    They also can't license the patents related to DVD playback.
    - onemoreact 15y ago
      I am not 100% sure you are allowed to limit who can use a patent in that fashion. IANAL, but requiring non monetary compensation may not be allowed. http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matters-9208.html http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matters-9208.ht...
  - zoul 15y ago
    DVD is a huge cocktail of patented technologies. You either license it properly or perish by the lawyers, that’s my understanding of it.
- MichaelApproved 15y ago
  ReplayTV tried something like that about 10 years ago with automatic skipping of commercials. They were sued into bankruptcy. http://news.cnet.com/ReplayTV-puts-ad-skipping-on-pause/2100-1041_3-1015121.html http://news.cnet.com/ReplayTV-puts-ad-skipping-on-pause/2100...
- gchpaco 15y ago
  In my fantasy world where we did this, it would be hacking apart VLC or something similar (which already, sensibly, ignores this dross); not so much the physical hardware (fingers wanted to type harmware, huh) because of the problems you cite.

3 ms·

I remember discussing with friends of mine whether or not it would be reasonable to have a DVD player that, upon encountering unskippable content, automatically

by gchpaco 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
zoul 15y ago
As far as I know DVD is a licensed technology and the companies that produce DVD players probably have some draconic measures in the license to prevent them from doing this. I think there used to be some players with an easily accessible factory settings, and the info about how to tweak the factory settings conveniently leaked, but I’m not sure how that worked in the end.
- nodata 15y ago
  They can't use the DVD logo if they do that. That's it iirc.
  - papercrane 15y ago
    They also can't license the patents related to DVD playback.
    - onemoreact 15y ago
      I am not 100% sure you are allowed to limit who can use a patent in that fashion. IANAL, but requiring non monetary compensation may not be allowed. http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matters-9208.html http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matters-9208.ht...
  - zoul 15y ago
    DVD is a huge cocktail of patented technologies. You either license it properly or perish by the lawyers, that’s my understanding of it.
- MichaelApproved 15y ago
  ReplayTV tried something like that about 10 years ago with automatic skipping of commercials. They were sued into bankruptcy. http://news.cnet.com/ReplayTV-puts-ad-skipping-on-pause/2100-1041_3-1015121.html http://news.cnet.com/ReplayTV-puts-ad-skipping-on-pause/2100...
- gchpaco 15y ago
  In my fantasy world where we did this, it would be hacking apart VLC or something similar (which already, sensibly, ignores this dross); not so much the physical hardware (fingers wanted to type harmware, huh) because of the problems you cite.