A fool's paradise? (DVD Forum)

Member Name: Archimedes

Product:	DVD Forum
Date:	08/04/01 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Improved disc capacity allows for special features, instant fast-forward/rewind, great picture quality, improved sound quality, clearly superior to VHS, might gain me a crown for this review.

Disadvantages: No recordable DVD players on the market until June, hasn't beaten all of its rivals yet, overly expensive for what they are, no universally accepted packaging design yet, some poor DVD players out there.

DVD is one of those annoying buzzwords that is being bandied around the technology industry at the moment. What's even more annoying about it is the fact that DVD is not even a word, it stands for Digital Versatile (not video, you young ragamuffins) Disc. It's an acronym, for God's sake! Does no one else feel my pain? Anyway, it matters not a jot as it is the technology, not the correct usage of English, that defines a new media. Most people know very little about DVD, other than it being the much tipped (although not certain) replacement of VHS, due to its superior picture quality, sound quality, capacity and its CD like interface. While this pretty much sums up the DVD for most, others, possibly the slightly more intelligent, will want to know more about something before they sink a few hundred pounds into their new film player. Well aren't you lucky people, because that's what I'm going to do.

The improved picture quality is one of the major advantages of DVD over VHS. Because DVDs are made with codes on the disc, rather than imprinting on film, as with VHS, they can be reproduced almost to master tape quality (the tape used by film studios and TV studios). The films are compressed into a small sized file (by comparison with what they should be) by removing images invisible to the human eye and recognising unmoving objects and then cutting them from future scenes. Because of this some DVDs may have slight pixelation present (where colours merge to form blocks on the screen that do not represent the true image). This is very rare though, and has been virtually eliminated today as it was not a limitation of the hardware, rather a matter of a lazy conversion by studios. The pictures are usually stunningly real and sharp, if viewed on a good television, but this is where your spending power comes into play. Most believe picture quality to remain constant from DVD player to DVD player but this is just not the case. You get what you pa
y for, and a lower end price range DVD player will have great picture quality, still far surpassing VHS, but it will not match a £250 plus player. The same is true of sound quality, but not to the same extent.

The sound offered by a DVD player can be one the best aspects of it. With a good set of speakers, usually about £225, the sound will blow you away. With nearly all supporting surround sound and the newest supporting the fantastic Dolby Digital 5.1 the sound can be great. All DVDs offer CD-quality sound, which sounds superb, even on the poorest players and speakers. As an added bonus, most players will play your CDs and VCDs as well!

Speaking of players, this is where people really need advice. Most blunder into the market, find, or so they think, a cheap but good player and scuttle back home, usually from a high street store. I have only one thing to say, don't! Dixons, Currys, Comet and the like will all rip you off. While there posters blaze out numbers most assume they are all saving us big money. In reality they are usually miles away from the great prices, and back-up, offered over the web. Firms such as Dabs.com offer superb prices and good information on all they supply. You can compare the specifications online, without some nattering salesperson in your ear telling you to spend, spend, spend. You can also read others reviews of the product, without relying on the dubious credentials offered by the sales hungry high street staff. I'd recommend logging onto Pricerunner.com, which compares prices from about 20 different stores for you.

The capacity is one of the huge superiority aspects of DVD over VHS. Because the films are compressed they take up less room than they should and when you consider that most DVDs hold a whopping 4.6 gigabytes of information (the same as a pre 1998 high spec computers hard drive!) you can see the possibilities. And they can also add an extra layer to double capacity, called dual-layer tech
nology. When using this there will be a slight shudder when the laser in the player refocuses itself to see the second layer. These advances have been leapt upon by most film studios and have helped turn what was a film spiced with adverts on either side into a whole viewing experience. They can now include lots of extra goodies, such as documentaries, games, image galleries, commentaries (from cast and director), multiple camera angles and many more soon to come. Because DVDs are so cheap to manufacture they can spill over onto a new disc for an extra couple of hours coverage for a very cheap price, and most now are.

And that brings me neatly onto the price issue. As with CDs, PlayStation games and all other disc based formats the DVD is very cheap to produce, less than £1, including packaging and distribution. However they currently retail at about £20-25 on the high street and it's only about £5 on the net. This is an absolute rip-off for consumers and the cheapest DVDs you will find are priced at around £10, and these tend to be the older titles, lacking any features whatsoever. It is likely that the prices will slip, but not until the DVD movie market has a solid niche, into which it can tap.

And, again, that brings me neatly onto the next topic, competition. Currently the competition lies in the form of the superdisc and the laserdisc, in the film market. Both of these are roughly the same deal, but lack the backing of the major companies that DVD enjoys. With the backing of the ever popular console market, both the PlayStation2 and the Microsoft X-Box feature DVD players built in, the DVD looks like it will really take off soon.

It's very likely that DVD will be the accepted medium of choice for, at least, the next decade or so. This is probably down to the major companies not wanting another Betamax versus VHS war, which hit both companies profits harshly. Instead the main competition is in the recording from television mar
ket. Most accept that VHS is finished here as well, but probably has longer to run here, due to falling prices of players and the lack of time enjoyed by any competition. However two clear contenders arriving are direct competitors, who both are of very different forms. One is that of HDTV (Hard Drive Television), which records TV onto a PC style hard drive, already available in the UK via Tivo. This retails at about £300, as well as having a monthly £10 subscription charge. It will, eventually, be able to connect to the internet and download TV schedules and point out any programmes of note to you. However the hard drive is not portable, and can only hold about 28 hours of recording, this may sound a lot but if you want to store programmes it soon mounts up. Add-ons are available but can dent our pocket considerably. Also, if you forget to tape a programme then you'll either have to wait for a repeat or just miss out, as you can't borrow someone elses copy anymore. This is where a direct swap for VHS comes in, DVD-RW. These discs can probably hold about 6 or 7 hours of pixel perfect footage and will probably feature all that the HDTVs do. They are also extremely portable and will probably cost about the same as a blank VHS tape does today, although that will take a while. The main drawback to the DVD-RW is the cost. When it is released, in June, it will cost about £1500, a huge tag that will take a while to drop.

Overall DVD is the format of choice for most of the people out there, and rightly so. Before buying a player you have to take into account how much you will use the little blighter and if it really is worth it. With prices dropping all the time you'll probably find it is and good luck to you. Happy watching!

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