I miss VHS tapes. When Zach was Sierra's age (two years old) he could put his Barney tapes in by himself, switch them when he wanted to, he could do it all. He enjoyed being that independent.
Sierra's videos are on DVD. When you put a DVD in, you never know what the hell is going to happen. Maybe it will play. Maybe it will bring up a menu. Maybe there will be previews that you can't "menu" out of.
Today she put her Barney DVD in. It started playing previews, so I pressed "menu". It said, "Operation prohibited at this time." Ok, I'm used to DVD's telling me what I can and can't do, though I thought this was over the top. So I pressed "Stop". It said, "Operation prohibited at this time." WTF? I'm not "allowed" to STOP it? I pressed "next" and -- probably due to a programming error -- it let me get away with that. After a few "next"'s, I got to a point where I could press "menu". Then after two selections from two menu's, I got to a point where I could press "next" to get past some OTHER thing, and FINALLY play the freakin' video.
I'm not exaggerating this. The above steps are what are required to go from DVD-in-box to watching-the-DVD.
Why is this ok? Why did we have to give up the ease and predictability of VHS, to get DVD quality? I don't think we did, I think it was a choice someone made.
Maybe by the time she's 14, she can handle her own DVD gymnastics...
Dave