This is pretty much what I was getting at. If you want a no fuss solution that works great, DVD/BD/4K is the way to go. BD can be done on a rather cheap budget now and DVDs cost next to nothing in many cases.

I enjoy LD for what it is.

I think there is a group of people that really enjoy trying to min/max their setup, and then there is a group of people that just simply enjoy watching and handling these big shiny discs. I'm in the latter group. I have the really expensive players, but the majority of the time I'm watching whatever I just worked on- usually much cheaper players and it is still quite enjoyable for me.

I’m in that camp as well. I have nice stuff I guess but I genuinely prefer to watch movies on LD. When I say FBI warnings bug me, I’m not kidding. I spent an hour frame by framing through a half hour disc last night. I enjoy this. I don’t enjoy any time at all spent on FBI warnings, previews for stuff that’s not even for sale anymore, etc. Last night I also watched some sections in reverse and at 3x. DVD can’t even do Repeat. Pathetic.

The annoyances of newer disc formats drive me crazy mostly because they aren’t defects, they are features I hate that were purposely invented and forced on us. LDs just...play, totally under my control from the second it starts playing. I love the jackets too, with chapter indexes etc. Anything that requires a password or software updates is inherently more of a PITA than LD. I’m never in the mood for that.

Anyone who thinks DVDs or Netflix are easier to operate than LDs doesn’t have kids. Even a three year old can operate an LD player but he can’t figure how to operate a DVD menu or type the name of his show into a search bar. A lot of more modern conveniences have silently displaced slightly less modern conveniences.

I forgot about all the required stuff you have to sit through on DVD/BR. Definitely annoying. I will say though I could watch the Image Entertainment intro where it shows the laser hitting the LD on loop .

I don't know, there are very few DVDs I have to sit through.
Maybe due to the cheapie region free DVD players I have, I can press menu or another button I can't remember right now
to get to the main menu.

The main issue I have with most DVDs are the main menus, they just show too much of the actual film or spoilers sometimes.
Really prefer the still first issue menus that have nothing other than selecting the play etc.

But I do prefer LDs over DVDs and my eyes can't see much of an improvement on my smaller 32 inch sets from DVD to Bluray so
I won't bother to upgrade and can get DVDs so super cheap unless its an anime that someone on ebay is asking 100-200 for.

Yes, with the A-B function you CAN watch it on a loop, that’s a good point. Take that, 4K Bluray!

I know some people that had their kids watch VHS tapes because it was easier for them than dealing with DVD. Put the tape in and it just starts.

At this point I am mostly buying exclusively boutique BD releases. Criterion goes right to the menu. I was disappointed when Discotek started adding trailers but at least they only play on the first disc of something when it's a multi-disc show. Plus you can just skip to the menu at least or I would have actually complained about it. Discs that make you sit through everything suck. Like rein-o says that is entirely avoidable on DVD with the right player.

I used to have an RCA DVD player that sort of sucked but there was a way to trick it into going right to the menu. No Sony is going to let that slide though.

American DVDs and BRs are way more annoying than foreign ones from my experience. The Snowman and the Snowdog actually loops, ads and all, forever. It’s satanic.

The ones that start by playing trailers to completely unrelated movies are the worst.

Well, second worst, but I'm pretty sure they don't use that unskippable "you wouldn't steal a car" PSA anymore so that's something at least.

I have a Loony Tunes DVD that runs an ad for the PS1 game Sheep Raider. A game I have owned for 20 years, I need to see the ad for it every time I want to watch these cartoons from the 1940s. Incredibly bad taste.

What about whoopi telling us that these are not politically correct........
or that's whats on the ones I have.

I don’t have Whoopie on any of mine but some do have a text frame that says as much which is unskipable and lasts for way too long. The point of owning a DVD of some thing is so you watch it over and over. Nobody needs to be forced to see this message every time they watch the disc.

God bless America

Technically speaking, LD players are designed to read warped discs. From "Pioneer Tuning Fork No.6", pg. 60:



I have some pretty badly warped discs, that will play all the way through.

LDs have "tilt". The LD is so big and heavy, that it actually "droops" on the outer edges. The "tilt" compensator mechanism adjusts the head angle to compensate for this.

If one player will play your discs, and another will only play them for "a while", then it is probably the "tilt" mechanism being inoperative in the player that won't play the discs. A malfunctioning or inoperative "tilt" mechanism, will be exacerbated by a warped disc.

I was thinking the discs would warp if you lay them on the floor and stack them instead of standing them up vertically.

General rule of thumb is to simply stand them up vertically to help reduce any pressure on the sides so that it won't have any affect on creating any chance of bending the disc. However, you can stack them without creating any warping issues so long as you are being reasonable about it (like don't stack 10 or more of them on top of each other).

In any case, stacking is the worst way to access your collection. Why would anyone want to to try and lift a huge number of discs to get to the one on the bottom?

if you were rich and wanted to show them off like coffee table books????

Thanks. I was looking for that but forgot where I read it.