For what it's worth...

[auntiemeesh]

Let me tell you the love I feel for dvds.

1. Scene selection. My very first dvd experience was a number of years ago, when I was visiting home and my little bro had just got himself a dvd player. He threw The Matrix in and wanted to show me his favorite scene, so he called up the menu, found the scene he wanted and away we went. How much cooler than fast forwarding and rewinding until you get to the exact right spot on a vcr?

2. Variable speeds on fast forward and rewind. When you don't want to sit through yet another endless recap of previous episodes, you can hit fast forward. Still impatient? Hit t again and again, until you're zooming through the scene at lightning speed. On the rare occasions when I'm forced to view something on VHS these days (usually while babysitting), I'm forever hitting the fast foward button and wondering why it won't go forward any faster. Along with this comes the scene skip button - one press of a button and you're in the next scene.

3. Special features. I cannot say enough about special features, because I love them so very much. Deleted or extended scenes are wonderful, because if it's a good show or movie, than the only thing better is more of it. Gag reels or bloopers, because that's just never not fun. Watching your fav actor/actress flub lines or trip over set dressing is just made of awesome. Behind the scenes, how they did that type stuff is equally awesome.

4. Commentaries. Yeah, kind of goes with special features, but I love commentaries extra a lot so I'm giving them their very own category. Well, I have to qualify that - commentaries have to be good to be my very favorite thing on a dvd; there've been a few shows that have craptastically boring commentary (much as I love Doctor Who, season one commentaries were just not worth listening to).

5. Box sets. Being able to have an entire season of some television show contained in one neat, slimline container is just beyond good.

6. Directors' cuts. Why did they not ever do this with vhs? It's obviously genius at work.

So, best and worst dvds I've bought in the last few years.
--Stargate Atlantis has really entertaining commentaries for pretty nearly every single episode, which makes for a win in my book. They also have some interesting behind the scenes stuff for a few eps in each season. No deleted scenes and no gag reel are some serious drawbacks, but all in all, I'd give them a 4 out of 5.

--Farscape has patchy commentary - only a few episodes per season have commentary and there are a few that are boring or self-involved. Lots of deleted scenes but no gag reel. Plenty of conceptual drawings and a focus on one or two characters per season. Again, about 4 out of 5.

--Doctor Who (season one or 28 or whatever it is) was disappointing. Boring commentaries, self-involved behind the scenes monologues by Russel T. Davies. The Confidentials were pretty interesting, though, and added a nice touch I haven't seen in any other sets, with some sort of behind the scenes focus for each episode. 3 out of 5

--Firefly - not as many commentaries as I'd like, but what there are, are gold. Deleted scenes, gag reel, behind the scenes stuff. Pretty nearly the whole package. 5 out of 5

--Smallville has pretty minimal extras. A few commentaries (I admit, I haven't listened to them yet), a few deleted scenes, not much else. You don't get much more than just the eps by themselves. 2 out of 5

--Supernatural - fantastic gag reel, only a few commentaries - the boys are really pretty, and they're great actors, but they don't do commentaries well, so the ones they do have long stretches of silence. Kripke's commentaries, on the other hand, are a lot of fun to listen to. Lots of behind the scenes bits of information about the episodes - how they were written, how the visual effects were done, etc. Could throw more deleted scenes in, but not bad in that department. 4 out of 5.

--Buffy and Angel - the special features didn't do anything for me. I watch these dvds for the episodes and don't get much of anything else out of them. 1 out of 5

Comments

[snonsumr.livejournal.com]

I also find myself very guilty of pressing FF or REW one too many times on the VCR remote. This is almost always follwed by the exclamation "fuck!" and pressing stop. My VCR will FF on the first press & on the second will stop the tape & enter into super warp speed FFing. By the time I realise this happens, I usually lose 10 minutes of episode.

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

That sounds annoying.