Showtime Now Butchering Movies: Credits, Pop Ups, Down-Res'd Sections - Page 4

Any other occasion would be egregiously unnecessary.

Who really cares ??

Move on !!!!!

Looks like HDTVFanAtic is just too immature to get over anything. What a shame. I hope this isn't a reflection of the caliber of young people these days.

Regardless, I watched Danny Darko last night. Not a big deal at all. The message was on-screen for a few seconds at a time, very infrequently -- hardly a blip.

There's more important things to worry about in Life,and this isn't one of them ! There is nothing that you are going to change with all the Whinning that you do on this forum !

If someone was really bored,they could scan about 1,000 of your post and see how you must get pleasure on Insulting Forum members here ! This post will probably get Deleted just like the last time I commented on your attitude. But I guess it's alright though for your Insults to go on ?

Have a nice Day !

Americans are losing jobs overseas because folks around the world are willing to do as good of a job as we do without demanding income sufficient to afford cable television and DVRs. In a recent 30 Days episode, the point was made painfully clear. A qualified software developer in India, who could easily command a good salary in this country, enough to afford all the wonderful things, barely earns enough in India to afford to live in a lean-to shack with dirt floors. It's a shame our schools don't teach students this reality that they'll face when they get out into the real world.

Question for HDTV fanatic...do you prefer OAR HDTV movie presentations on SHO and TMC HD (with sometimes butchered credits/banners) or the cropped presentations (but no butchered credits) on HBO Cinemax and Starz?

why the hell are they showing the banner on the HD channel? Unless some providers are showing the HD channel for free also? Dish sure isnt.

Um, maybe you should keep things in perspective?

I doubt he knows what perspective is. I don't think I've ever seen someone so self-involved as he is. Lost cause.

/q

Wow. This is unfreaking amazing!

bicker commented:
> Even if it is as you say, <<br />
Unfortunately, it turns out that it's exactly as he said it was.

I sit down to watch "Sahara" today, and in a 2h,6m showing I get _8_ interruptions, one every 15 minutes, like clockwork.

> it's not earth-shakingly annoying, so no big deal. <<br />
I'm really gratified to hear that it doesn't bother you, because it bugged the sh!t out of me.

Seriously, bicker, it doesn't take you out of the experience at all, to have distractions like that? (I'm watching on an 8' screen, in a dimmed environment, not on a TV set, if that makes any difference.) If you were watching a film in a theater, and ads for gummy bears popped up every 15 minutes, would that be OK with you?

[Since it doesn't bother you, maybe they should just leave it up on the screen the whole time? No, that's no good... you'd perceptually filter that out after a while. I've got a better idea. They need a constantly-scrolling screen crawl across the bottom, with an occasional spin and twirl flourish. That'll keep drawing your eyes away from the film and onto their commercial messages. And, oh yeah, a blast of trumpets with "ta da" to make sure you're not ignoring it. That oughta be pretty effective. Hold on a minute... I think TNT-HD may have a patent-pending on that.]

> You do get what you pay for. <<br />
Yeah, well you got at least one right. This is free, after all. No, wait a minute... I'm paying for this!

I can understand why HFA is getting some flak here, because his comments can be pretty abrasive at times (unnecessarily so, in many cases, IMO). That's just his personality, and unfortunately it costs him some reader credibility when he voices an issue. But he's right on the money here, as far as I'm concerned.

This isn't what _I'm_ paying for, and it isn't the way it used to be!!. They're making poorly-conceived changes, and apparently the vast majority just doesn't give a d@mn. I find that more than a little sad. And when, a few years down the road, it finally reaches your own personal threshold of annoyance, and you all wake up and find yourselves asking, "What the he!! happened? How did things get this bad?", the answer will be... one small "no big deal" step at a time.

This totally trashed the recording I had running of Sahara, so I'll have to wait until the "Free Preview" is over so I can get a clean copy. In about a week, I'll be terminating my Showtime service, and letting their Head of Programming know why. I have no illusions that my isolated actions will have any impact whatsoever. What they will listen to is feedback from _mass quantities_ of customers. But evidently the masses just don't care. So I am confident that in this environment, their consideration and respect for their customers will continue to deteriorate. No reason for me to stick around for that.

- Tim

What's really assinine about these adverts run during a film is that they're totally illogical. What do I mean?


Not at the end of a movie, or between films, but right smack-dab in the middle of the show.

- Tim

Well said, Tim. I don't subscribe to Showtime (was considering it) but after seeing those atrocious intrusions into their programming I won't give them a dime. I will make sure to let them know that, too.

I witnessed a few of these 'pop-ups' during Showtime's boxing presentation this evening and I don't understand the logic of them either. I mean, what's the point? It's not like these intrusions are going to increase their viewership/subscribership any. They're preaching to the choir. Only thing that I can think of is there's some kind of Showtime 'freeview' going for non-subscribers and they want to push their premium product at every opportunity. I hope this is the case and this nonesense goes away when the freeview is over.

Tim,

FWIW, I will be doing likewise. Showtime's lineup is not that terrific in the first place; adding the barrage of pop-ups and interrupted credits makes Showtime of no value to me.

Willie

I'm not sure the question was illogical, since you answered the question fully to my satisfaction.

I fully respect your position. OAR just happens to be at the top of my list.

No, I'm not assuming that. Both are evil, I just wanted to know what is worst in your book.

I would love it if all the premium channels broadcasted OAR, DD 5.1 448k, 19 Mbps, and no banners (or even screen bugs).

I guess I just pick my battles. In my book, fighting for OAR is much more admirable than squabbling over the credits and free preview banners (which only occur a few times out of the year) with one of the lone providers who gives us OAR.

Why are you so fervently fighting this, yet you accept cropping of OAR on other channels?

Are they currently having a free preview? Not only did they have popups during there original programing but also during movies. This is insane. I pay a great deal of money for this channel. Butchering the credits is one thing but having ads for other shows during movies is just not right. I am going to try very hard to remember to email them complaining about this BS practice.

I am about to dump Showtime. IMO, their programming has been terrible. They have the occasional gem, but, how many months over does someone really need to see Saw, Mean Creek, and Crash? Butchering the movies is the icing on the cake for me.

I terminated my Showtime service after their last "free preview" abomination, and let them know why. But I see from checking their web guide that they solved one of their long-standing problems. From time to time, they'd list a film as HDTV OAR, but it wasn't actually in OAR. Then they had to deal with the annoying problem of paying customers contacting them to complain about it.

Their "fix" was to just drop that information completely. Their new "improved" guide simply says it's "True HD" (no clue as to OAR or not), or "Upconverted OAR". Pretty slick.

- Tim