Skip to main contentIt seems like the coolest holiday present ever--at first. Soon you're pulling out most of your hair, crumbling in tears and putting the damn thing back in the box. That DVD player you were so excited about is now the bane of your existence. Trust me. I've been there. It took me three days to figure out how to get my DVD player--which I affectionately refer to as "no-good sumbitch"--to work. That was more than two years ago, and I still don't know how to operate most functions. I guess you could call me an expert.
Now, let's deal with some common DVD concerns.
How the f**k do I get this f*****g thing to work with my motherf*****g television? If your TV is more than a few years old, the first thing you probably notice is there's no place on the television to plug the DVD player into. You fumble around the television for a while, like some awkward teenager having his sexual experience, convinced that there must be some place to "make the connection." But your television has no "female" outlet for your DVD's "male" cable. So you consult the instruction manual--written, of course, in Sanskrit. Now you panic and run to the nearest electronics store, where some jackass tries to convince you that what you need is a brand-new television (at least, that's what happened to me).
Well, let me tell you, that's a load of bulls**t. All you need to get your new DVD player working with your trusty old TV is a thingy known as an RF modulator (available at Radio Shack for about $30) that you jack into the VCR output in the back of the TV. Anything that in theory you would plug into the back of your television--including DVD players, VCRs and game systems--is routed through the modulator, which allows you to select which device you want to use with a push of a button. From there the modulator is connected to the back of the television. The result is a jumbled mess of cables, but it should work.
Another thing to try is hooking the DVD player into your VCR. But in order for the DVD to work, you must keep the VCR on and push the VCR/TV button to switch. I've seen this work, but because I have two VCRs for illegally pirating movies, I am forced to go with the modulator.
If neither of these tricks works, please don't call me looking for advice. I'm only slightly less full of crap than the guy trying to sell you a new television.
Assuming that your DVD player is now working, you have a new set of concerns to deal with.
What are those black bars at the top and bottom of the television screen? That, my friends is a little thing I like to call "preserving artistic integrity," something that will no doubt be lost on anyone who's excited to watch their collector's edition of Josie and the Pussycats or 3000 Miles to Graceland. Basically, those black bars are what is known as either "widescreen format" or "letterboxing," which presents the film in the elongated rectangular shape it was shot and originally screened in. Since televisions are square, movies have to be reformatted to fit your television screen, resulting in a loss of picture (in some cases up to 50 percent). It all has to do with math--you cannot make a rectangular image fit into a square area without trimming some of it away. Letterboxing preserves the entire picture, presenting the movie the way it was meant to be seen. I know some of you will complain, "I paid for the whole television! I don't care about preserving artistic integrity--I want the whole f*****g screen used." What can I say? We don't always get what we want. I didn't vote for George W. Bush, and you don't get to use the entire screen on your TV. Life sucks sometimes.
I can't hear the movie because there is someone talking over it. Many DVDs come with bonus features, like audio commentary from the director. If this is all you hear, then it simply means that feature is turned on. Other features that you might accidentally turn on include subtitles and foreign language tracks. Don't worry, you didn't accidentally buy a Chinese version of an Adam Sandler movie. All you have to do is turn these features off. That is what the remote control and the instruction manual are for (I can't explain everything to you).
When I put in the DVD, all I get is a map of the world with a message that tells me this disc can't be played on my machine. OK, this is a bit more complicated. DVD players and discs are manufactured by region (North America is Region 1). You can't play a disc from Region 5 (which I think is France) on a Region 1 player; but you can play a Region 5 disc on a "region-free" player. The problem is that companies such as Warner Brothers and Columbia are now encoding their discs not to play on region-free machines (this prevents people in other regions having access to films before they can play in theaters overseas). But don't worry, you can manually program your machine to play encoded discs. Your instruction manual should explain how to do this, or go to the website of the manufacturer of the player and email them asking how to get around this problem (again, I can't explain every d**n thing to you).
This all sounds like a pain in the ***. Why do I need a DVD anyway? At the end of the day, the picture quality on DVDs really is better than that of VHS. And when you get a disc with really cool supplementary material like the "making of" documentaries on The Matrix and the deleted scenes on Out of Sight, it's all worth it. Besides, your beloved VCR is on the fast track to becoming much like that eight-track player in your living room: a precious reminder of simpler times.
WWeek 2015