Over the last few years, the DVD industry has been growing by leaps and bounds. This growth has allowed for movies, television shows and specialty web-based content to be made available to the consumer for purchase in a high-quality video and audio-based format.

Universal/DreamWorks and Paramount, however, have been progressively worsening the quality of the format. Since late 2003, both companies have been integrating some level of forced coming attraction previews upon playback of their DVDs. Paramount usually includes an option to view them or go directly to the main menu, though some titles require the viewer to chapter-skip past them. Almost all Universal/DreamWorks releases have forced previews, which can only be fast forwarded (forward scanned). This is unacceptable; when you purchase a title, you should not be required to sit through advertisements. Im not happy that every time I wish to watch Shrek 2, I have to sit through 10 minutes of garbage about Madagascar and A Shark Tale. Buena Vista/Disney home video have tradionally had a menu at the start, similar to most Paramount titles, which allows you to press the menu button to bypass previews. This is an acceptable compromise.

Along with the previews nonsense, Universal/DreamWorks and Paramount have also been degrading the DVD experience during the last 18 months. Both have eliminated chapter insert slips, incorporated the useless and annoying locking clips in the packaging, and, in Universals case, have not been incorporating code in titles to allow switching of audio and subtitle tracks during playback, forcing the viewer to manually switch audio and subtitles at the main menu. Universal has been doing this for years, not just recently.

This petition is to show Universal/DreamWorks and Paramount that we, the DVD consumer, are not going to purchase their products until they address and rectify the aforementioned issues. With the success of the format directly coinciding with the decline in quality of these companies releases, one can only conclude that their opinion is that we will buy DVDs, no matter what. They are wrong. Sign today and take the stand.