This is a copy of a PM I sent to ROF, who claimed s/he could bypass Previews/Commercials and FBI warning on pressed discs in any settop player by hitting the [STOP] key ASAP and then going to a Title search. I had a much different opinion and asked him to stop saying blanket statements like that, as it gives false info to newbies. He wanted me to iterate which decks I was having problems with. It took me a little while to get back to the topic as other things came up. But here's my response...


...Well, I was going to get back to you about the players...

They were:
Pioneer PRV-1900
Apex AD-3201
Cyberhome CH DVD-300
Norcent DP-300
Sanyo DWM-450

But then I went back with a different disc, and some played OK while others didn't allow it. This was a different combination of players!
So I did some research...

There are quite a number of PUO switches. They can be any combination of one or more.


PLAYBACK CONTROL

Title Play
PTT Search/Play
Time Search/Play
Stop
Resume
Time/PTT Search
Still Off
Pause On/Off
Fwd Scan
Bwd Scan
Next Program
Prev. Program

STREAM SELECT

Audio
Subpicture
Video Angle
Video Presentation Mode

BUTTON SELECT

Select / Activate

MENU CALLS

Root Menu (DVD)
Title Menu
Subpic Menu
Audio Menu
Angle Menu
PTT Menu

PTT SKIPS

1st Chapter
Last Chapter



So there's no way we'd be able to compare machines if trying out with different discs that may or may not have had the same PUO's selected.

So, to see if there is still a workaround for a worst-case scenario, I created a DVD Video presentation that has a 30 second countdown as 1st play. During that countdown, ALL PUO's are selected. When the countdown is over, it goes to a 2nd still screen (10 sec). If it's possible to bypass these PUO's in ANY way before the countdown is over, the player is probably not built according to spec.
With this burned title, I tried it on all the players above, as well as WinDVD and PowerDVD on some different computers.
ALL could not bypass the PUO's with ANY keypress.

I've zipped the VideoTS folder and uploaded it to my website so that anybody can DL it and test their machines with it. It's about 3.5MB. It's at http://www.cornucopiadm.com/goodies/NOADVANCE_VIDEO_TS.zip.
I'm also putting this up on the main thread where this was discussed, because I think it would clear things up for a lot of people.

Scott

Therefore, the only way to get around these kinds of aggravations is to rip the disc with DVD Decryptor or something similar that can remove PUO's--even if the disc isn't Encrypted or Copy-protected. 1 more reason for need these kinds of tools. Enjoy the file! And ANYONE please post back if you find players that ignore the PUO's.