Alas for VHS

I watched a movie with K last night, the Birdcage (note: hilarious). It's part of my movie collection that I started buying before I realized that VCRs were out and DVD players were in back in 2001. Yes, I realized late.

However, the market's hurried transition to DVD on the basis of "better picture and sound quality," "special features," etc. may have overlooked some of the benefits of VHS tapes:
1) No previews. Within 30 seconds of putting the tape in last night, I was watching my movie. (note: I know that some VHS tapes had previews).

2) Save your place. I'm sure some people really like the thumbnail image menus on a DVD player to jump to a particular place (and they are great for that if you just want to show someone a particular segment). But if you're the kind of person who maybe takes two nights to watch a movie, it's nice to know that you can turn the player off and resume at exactly the same place without any extra navigation. Let's illustrate resuming a movie halfway:
DVD player: system on...disabled menu button thwarts preview skipping...FF through previews...chapter switch turns off FF...disabled FF button forces me to watch 20th Century Fox splash screen...idiotic menu animation wastes another 10 seconds...successfully pick closest scene...FF through scene to find exact place.

VCR: System on...play.

3) No fascist remote. I can't count the number of times I've had my DVD player flash a big red X when I press the "menu" button to skip previews or FBI warnings, etc. On a VHS player, the remote buttons work the same for every tape and they all work. Preview? FF. FBI warning? FF.

4) No inane menu animations. The first time I watch a DVD I like the menu animations - they're clever. By the second time, I want to scream. I don't need to watch the Knight Bus zoom across the screen before every Harry Potter 3 scene selection page display. Let me turn off animations or better yet, skip them and cut the price of the DVD.

We're now being introduced to HD-DVD and BluRay DVDs, with supposedly even better features. Something tells me it won't involve preview skipping...