Singing Loudly

If you happen to work with one of the big studios, and you are in charge of whether or not to have previews on an upcoming release of a DVD, you have, in my mind, a few options.

First, you could probably treat DVDs that consumers purchase different from the DVDs that rental companies purchase. However, the best option is to treat them equally and leave off any previews. I have serious doubts that they really do all that much good anyhow.

Second, you could include the previews to begin automatically when a DVD is inserted in the player. With this option I've seen it handled a few ways. (A) You allow the DVD player to chapter skip entirely through the previews; (B) allowing the DVD player to fast-forward through the movies; and (C) not allowing the DVD player to bypass the previews. Obviously the preferable choice in here is to allow the DVD player to chapter skip.

Finally, the worst option of all is to show the previews after the viewer selects "Play" on the menu screen. This is enough to make sure I will never buy those films on the preview and possibly avoid DVDs your studio puts out entirely. After you get to the menu screen, most viewers are ready to watch the actual movie when they hit play. They do not want to see a stupid promo for your studio of preview for another release.