DVD Shrink
The best part of DVD Shrink is that it scrubs your DVDs of “prohibited user operation,” or “PUOP” flags. You know, the ones that effectively add 30 seconds to the boot time of your DVD player by putting that little stop sign up in the corner when you try to fast forward through the really unamazing CG animation sequence before the main menu.
I’m fascinated that DVD manufacturers (a) choose to punish the 99.9999999% of DVD viewers who are not members of counterfeiting rings by forcing them to watch some gobbledygook about Interpol and rebroadcasting every single time they pop a movie in their player, and (b) apparently think that the other 0.0000001% of viewers – the target audience of the PUOP warnings – will actually realize the error of their ways and leave their bootlegging careers because the DVD they’re copying told them to. (There’s also an possibility ©, which is that DVD manufacturers figure we’re all on the verge of becoming copyright criminals and need reeducation through Intellectual Property Boot Camp Class before being allowed to watch the movie we bought.)
Never mind the completely pointless PUOP sequences, such as the ones on The Simpsons DVDs that spend 8 seconds of dead air telling us that the opinions of commentators are their own and not those of the publisher. Who in the marketing department decided that needed to be a PUOP?
Try DVD Shrink. You’ll find that it’s worth spending 30 cents on a DVD blank for DVDs you watch frequently just to get rid of the warnings. And guess what – it’s 100% legal to do so! (At least, as long as legislation like this doesn’t take effect.)