I'm only speculating here since I only watched a handfull of movies on the one my friend had, and don't remember squat about its features... but I wonder if, much like a record player, you simply put the videodisc in the player, & it played from beginning to end? No fast forward, no rewind, no pause or skip or search... just play & stop?
I'm assuming this because I never saw a record player with those capabilities. And if they'd found a way to do it with the videodisc player, you would have thought that technology would have trickled down to record players as well.
Although I suppose I never saw every record player ever made either.