> OP here might be misremembering DVDs, here: the physical media skipped or froze intermittently and the players themselves were finicky

In my teens my friends and I watched probably hundreds of DVDs, and they almost never had a problem. Skips & freezes were almost only ever a factor for highly scratched copies, more typical of those from Blockbuster than anything we picked up in the $5 bargain bins.

I don't think I've ever encountered a "finicky" player, either. I don't even know what that'd mean.