Say what you want about VHS, but at least you could skip the shit.

[ak]

I hate VHS. It's clunky, crappy, ugly, old technology, but at least you had a degree of control over them.
I've noticed as of late, that there's an increase in the lack of control consumers are allowed over the 'skip' function on DVDs.

Okay, so the copyright notice comes up, I'm not allowed to skip, great. It's a minute wait until that passes. Then some crappy production logo pops up, great...again, I'm not allowed to skip.
Two minutes of my life wasted. Then another - "The commentaries within this DVD are the opinions of the actors blah blah blah".

But....most annoying of all is an advert they have stuck infront of (some) DVDs here in the UK, particularly when you rent a flick - "You wouldn't steal a DVD from a shop. Downloading is stealing". It's basically a fully-fledged 'educational' trailer warning of the dangers of downloading/copying films. (Well, here's a trick, copy the DVD and you can freely skip through ALL THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT).

Please, someone shoot the fucker who disallowed me the right to skip that fucking shit brain-washing advert. I realise the message that's being conveyed, but at least treat me like an adult and allow me to skip it. I didn't buy this DVD to sit through a total of 5 minutes of un-skippable (is that a word?) notices.

I suppose the next step would be to make me watch film trailers. If that day comes, that's the day I stop buying DVDs.

[ParileseMonster]

You know, I do love Modern Technology, I do like the DVD, but I still have VHS and I still get VHS on occasion. Not everything In my collection is on DVD yet and some of my tapes I have not upgraded to DVD simply because the DVD of my tape is full screen and bare bones. I was called a Cavewoman the other day because I told some dude to tape a show. He is like hello tape what are you a cavewoman? I tivo. Well whoopdie do who the fuck cares so tivo the damn thing, I do not have Tivo nor do I want it I do not watch tv all that damn much.
Just because I still have a VCR does not mean I am a cave person by any means. It only means that I do not throw away things unless they are broke, not because it is no longer cool to have that is just wasteful. My father still has his Beta tapes and machine which by the way Beta were better constructed and lasted longer than VHS. People did not want Beta they wanted bigger, that was the 80's for you, everything had to be big, now we want to be small again. I still have my laser disc's and machine.
Anyway not to ramble, but I hate that crap also about the damn FBI warning that you can't skip on DVD's or the force fed trailers which are on some. If I rent it fine, but if I buy the fucker I should have the right to skip the shit.

[ak]

I think VHS is just easy. Stick it in, press 'record', or 'play' and away you go. DVD isn't instant like VHS. The positives of DVD are obviously far more than negative, but I think I'm impatient, so I want instant response, I just want to get to the film.

I've just this minute started to watch the second series of 'Little Britain' on DVD (comedy show in the UK), and the guys from the show talk over the bit that says "The unauthorised copying, hiring, lending..." bit. Quite funny. Makes a change from the usual snore-inducing DVD crap.

[TheDeadWalk]

Sometimes I can't skip past those bullshit ads, but I can still fast forward through them. But you have to keep fast forwarding though because after every ad it goes back to normal speed.

[Badbird]

Yeah, I've thought this same thing for a while. Every time I see a FBI Warning logo I always think of that scene from Spaceballs where they put in the movie and fast forward past it. I'm not a huge fan of the movie, but I love that scene.

Another advantage VHS had was no layer change pause... it just kept playing without skipping a beat. Oh, and no digital artifacts pixilating up your screen. Older DVDs were particularly bad about this. For instance, if the screen was largely black, it would look terrible - it would get all boxy like setting your computer moniter on low resolution. Not so much a problem anymore, but every once and a while, you'll catch some pixilation.

[Criminal Rock]

There are some DVD players that can skip over that junk, i know I do it all the time with mine… though sometimes it doesn’t play audio either, so maybe my DVD player is just broken.

…

or maybe not.

[Cronos]

i was annoyed with the forced adds and trailers until i realised you could just skip the 4-5 chaptersof them til the menu appears. i also found that with some discs that if you just stop the dvd from playing when you put it in and then press the menu button it skips all of the forced warnings and stuff

[SpongeBod]

I'm not sure about other companies, but Disney is supposed to have stopped making DVDs that don't let you skip the ads and previews.

[RustyRazor]

I still have Betamax.
....
Does anyone wanna watch Continental Divide or Night Shift with me?

Hey! Don't judge me!
It was a breakout movie for Michael Keaton!
And Shelley Long was on fire!



VHS is cool and I will miss it.:(

[bigred760]

I don't miss VHS. It was always fullscreen and the tracking always seemed to be a problem like 80-90% of the time. Most of the time, I can fast-forward through the DVD stuff as well - it's no big deal to me.

[countchocula]

It's heartbreaking to see VHS slowly evaporate. As pointed out earlier, it's easy and simple (not to mention easier to open). Fullscreen won't kill anyone. Sure, I prefer widescreen, but it's not a big deal.

[MisterTwister]

Originally posted by countchocula
It's heartbreaking to see VHS slowly evaporate. As pointed out earlier, it's easy and simple (not to mention easier to open). Fullscreen won't kill anyone. Sure, I prefer widescreen, but it's not a big deal.

It is a big deal for certain movies. Some movies look fucking horrible in Fullscreen. Most of these movies are shot in 2.35:1 format-which i prefer to shot in (coughFloaterscough). VHS had it's day and in the future DVD will too and be replaced by a superior product.

[jaw2929]

I love VHS, I'll always love VHS... It's like an old friend of mine :p

But I've since made the switch to DVD's, because they save me SO much space, it's incredible...

And I agree, I like the FF function on the VHS MUCH better than that on the DVD... I also don't like how when I FF somethin on DVD, it'll play the part I pressed the Play button on, but the audio won't kick in for a second or 2... It's agitating..

[The Postmaster General]

The best part about VHS was when you'd be fast forwarding over shit, and then go to far, hit rewind while it was still FF, and your tape would get eaten.

Oh, that sucked actually.

I still have a VHS player and plenty of tapes. Lots of film festivals ask for a VHS copy of your submission, so it's far from a dead technology.

Sometimes the picture is a little better of VHS, especially lower budget movies with poor digital transfer. Often it isn't soft enough, or you see artifacts.

VHS is cool and all - but I question why you would be impatient about the ads, but not impatient about waiting 3 days for the movie to rewind back to the beginning.

For the most part, I usually pop in a DVD long before I'm ready to watch it --- Go take a dump or something. Then come back and it's ready to go. Of course, only on my PLaystation and computer do I not have the luxury of skipping the ads and commercials. I could see how that would make one want to rant.

Hell, all they need now, to make DVDs perfect --- Add a tracking knob. ;)

[Proglodyte]

I have a 3 year old daughter and something I have noticed is that the DVD's of those CGI Barbie movies are the worst as far as having to wait so long to start the damn movie. You can at least skip through the 10 or so trailers that automatically want to play. But then you have to sit and wait for these stupid drawn out main menu animations. Then as if that is not enough, you have to navigate through 2 or 3 different menu screens to play the friggin' thing. Meanwhile, I have my daughter fussing at me to play the movie for her!

[coconut84]

What I miss with VHS is that they preserve better. What I mean by this is that when you go and rent a DVD that has been used a lot it goes pixels, it has scratches and dust and it skips all the time!!
Compared to VHS you only have to adjust the tape a bit tighter. And it runs smoothly.

[Arodin]

I also hate the FBI warnings and logos and stuff you can't skip past, but I have a bigger peeve with DVDs.

I don't know if this is all DVD players or older ones or only the ones I've used, but in order to fast forward a DVD I have to hold down the skip chapter button until it starts to FF (prev chapter button to rewind). Trouble is if I let go of the button too soon (or the remote decides to pretend that I did), it registers it as a chapter skip. So suddenly I'm 15 minutes farther into the flick than I wanted to go. Shit! This becomes a nightmare when the remote control batteries are starting to get weak and it grows a mind of its own.

There's about a dozen stupid useless buttons on this remote that I've never had to press -- I'd think they could put seperate FF and RW buttons on.