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Skip Past Those Annoying DVD Trailers

When you're on an airplane, ready to watch that DVD of District 9 (great flick, by the way), the last thing you want to do is sit through 10 minutes of trailers, FBI warnings, and other eyeball spam. It's not only boring, but also a waste of precious battery life!

Unfortunately, most DVDs don't let you skip that stuff -- until you learn the secret trick, that is. In this video, CNET's Tom Merritt explains how you can easily jump right to the movie.

It's intended for DVD players, not laptops, but there's a way to make it work with the latter. First, check out the video:



Obviously most laptops don't have remotes, so how can you "press stop"? On my machine, I popped in a DVD and fired up Windows Media Player. When the first splash screen appeared, I clicked the player's Stop button. Then I clicked Play, and wouldn't you know: The disc skipped ahead to the previews.

I repeated the process -- Stop, then Play -- and it advanced to the FBI warning. I did it a third time and presto: I landed right on the movie's menu screen. It may have taken a few extra clicks, but it was still much faster than sitting through all that stuff.

Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on your laptop, your chosen DVD, and any DVD software you happen to have installed. But it's definitely worth a try.

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