Thanks to irrational conservative moral panic about videotape recorders, every DVD (or Blu-ray Disc, or Laserdisc, or VHS tape) sold in the UK has to have every second of video on it pre-vetted for viewing by an organisation called the British Board of Film Classification (previously the British Board of Film Censors). Unlike the US and Canada, you can't decide not to rate a DVD. After your film's been pre-vetted for sale (or rarely, rejected, effectively "banning" it from shelves), you receive a rating or "certificate" (their terminology) which states who it can be sold to (PG, 12, 15, 18, etc).
Apart from the absurdity of this situation (they're pixels on a screen, for fuck's sake), it also creates a few problems. First of all, what is and isn't OK with the BBFC changes as the years go by. In the past, they didn't like chainsaws. For a while, they didn't seem to like head-butts. I think their most recent fear has been of hanging scenes, but I haven't been paying attention to them much lately since most of what I buy is from the US (where a much more mysterious and unpredictable organisation holds the scissors).
Much worse though is that it limits what's available and creates financial difficulties for UK DVD labels. The BBFC don't work for free, so you have to pony up the cash if you want them to look at anything (and you do, if you want to release anything). "Anything" includes feature films, moving DVD menus, any extra features, and yes, if you want to include an audio commentary, you have to pay them double so they can watch the film again and decide whether or not the director's comments raise the rating. If it moves and makes sounds, you pay for it.
There's a fee calculator on their web site which lets you calculate costs, which are based on run-time. To release a DVD of a 120-minute feature film with an audio commentary and with 30 minutes of interviews, it would cost £1695 - no problem for the big studios, but a problem for the little guys. Does this have an effect on the quality of the final product? Yes. I can tell you for a fact that smaller UK distributors sometimes omit audio commentaries from their releases so they can stand a better chance of breaking even, or even making a profit on a niche title.
Oh, by the way - if you're releasing a film in cinemas AND on DVD AND on a video on demand service, you have to pay three times. Apparently, the environment you watch the film in can change the rating. By the looks of it, they're also charging again if you want to release your film on a Download service (presumably iTunes), how they can possibly justify this for online material is beyond me, so this could be a misunderstanding on my part.
All of the above is partly why people talking about film "certificates" pisses me off. "Horny McDouchebag's Wild Adventure was awarded an 18 certificate". It's not a fucking achievement, it's a bureaucratic, conservatively inspired annoyance which quite frankly, everyone except for some naive parents (who think a little red circle with "18" in it is going to stop their kids from seeing simulated violence on a TV screen) - and of course the people profiting from the operation - could do without.
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