In my day, “Play” meant “Play”

Today, I went over to my parents’ place and spent some time with them over dinner and watching TV. It has been a while since the three of us have gotten together just to get together and not to celebrate a holiday or the birthday of one of my 9 nieces and nephews. It was really nice.

As parents are want to do, or maybe more accurately, need to do, my Mom asked me to have a look at her new VCR/DVD combo and make sure that it was set up correctly. I’m happy to say that it was. I also noticed that Mom had inadvertently bought not only a VCR/DVD player, but a VCR/DVD recorder. Nice score, Mom!

In showing her the ins and outs of her new toy, a UI pet peeve of mine was brought back to mind. That peeve being the Play button on DVD players and their accompanying remotes. For those of us who were brought up on cassette tapes and VCRs, the Play button has always been the thing that you would press to start the music or movie playing.

That changed a bit with DVDs and it has been a source of grief for countless older types ever since. Play on a DVD does indeed play the DVD, but only from a software stand point. It plays the DVD, but it doesn’t play the movie. This is a distinction that can be a quantum leap of reasoning for some people and it’s understandable. Let’s look at the buttons most often adjacent to the Play button…

What does Fast Forward do on a VCR?
It makes the movie play faster to reach a point later in the film.

What does Fast Forward do on a DVD?
It makes the movie play faster to reach a point later in the film.

What does Rewind do on a VCR?
It reverses the play direction and increases the speed to reach a point earlier in the film.

What does Rewind do on a DVD?
It reverses the play direction and increases the speed to reach a point earlier in the film.

The functions of those buttons have not changed and on most DVD players, the Fast Forward and Rewind do nothing until the movie is playing. The Play button on the other hand starts the software encoded on the DVD and from within that software (who’s interface is different from DVD to DVD as an enhancement the movie watching experience) you then select “Play” from an onscreen menu and hit Enter.

There was no Enter on my Mom’s old VCR. My Mom doesn’t know from Enter.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was at least one button on every DVD player that would get you right to the movie—no menu, no setup, no languages or subtitles—just play the frikkin’ movie? Just so that the oldsters of the world don’t feel so stupid and the not-so-oldsters of the world don’t have to explain this stuff every other month?