You open a DVD case, and see the disk in its little molded plastic nest. The little middle part holds it in, and there is that ridge running around the circumference to keep it in snug. How do get it out, then? Oh, look, they have little dips in the plastic for my fingers, so I can get a grip on the edge of the disc! How considerate.
MOTHER OF FUCK! It’s a trick! A mean, horrible trick! The finger dips are just there to make you THINK you can get the disc out, but the ridge goes all the way around the disc uninterrupted!!
You depress the middle catch, and it goes in and under and pushes the DVD up so you can access the lip of it and hold it correctly.
Some of the Disney ones don’t do that, they expect you to basically yank it out with no help at all from the case, but I really don’t like that. It makes me fear I’ll snap the disc in two.
I know how to get them out. That isn’t the point. The point is that those little indentations look like the ideal way to grasp the sides of the disc, but they’re nothing more than a cruel hoax.
At first I was trying to figure out what Opal was meowing about. So I opened up my Silence of the Lambs and there it was, exactly what she was talking about. The great DVD fakeout, finger holds that aren’t! Also evident The Princess Bride:SE and The Magnificent Seven. Of course they all have one thing in common, they are MGM Home Entertainment. So you can probably find it on any of their discs, just look for the stately lion logo on the bottom of the spine.
This is a Pioneer DVD. (first volume of Card Captor Sakura, to be specific) It has the little pushdown thingie. Maybe I broke it, because I don’t think the DVD is supposed to spin freely around the middle pushdown thingie. And the case doesn’t close all the way.
I never would’ve figured out how the case worked if I hadn’t read loads of complaints about it. As it was, I sat there for five minutes, trying to use the little notches. Darn them. What’s wrong with CD-type cases?
jessica
While I’m sure someone will come along with a fully explanatory cite, I’ll give you the basic answer:
DVD cases (whether the clamshell, or “keeper”, cases or the digipak type cases (which suck)) had to fit in the same space a VHS tape (in length and width, but not necessarily in thickness). Similiar to the time when CD’s first came out in the “long boxes”, which had to fit in existing LP bins. Artwork is also a consideration.