THE DVD FORMAT TURNS 20 THIS MONTH!

The Digital Bits ^ | March 1, 2017 | Bill Hunt

[PJ-Comix]

Yes, folks, it’s true… this month marks the 20th anniversary of the beloved DVD format. The exact date is a matter of debate; some technically consider March 1, 1997 as the official date, though our records show that March 19 technically marks the official start of the U.S. launch, and the format was actually launched first in Japan in November of 1996. Either way, the first players and movie discs weren’t available in the seven initial U.S. test markets (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Seattle, and Washington) until much later in March 1997.

Specifically, the first DVD titles appeared at Best Buy, Tower Records, The Good Guys, and other video/electronics stores in those markets on March 24, and the first actual players didn’t arrive in stock until March 26. Warner launched the format with an initial slate of 25 titles, including Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut (as it happens, the first title I purchased – you can see it below), Twister, Batman, GoldenEye, Eraser, The Fugitive, The Glimmer Man, The Mask, and Space Jam, among others. Those titles sold for $19.95 to $24.98. Tell me... do these old Snapper cases (below) look familiar to you?

[minnesota_bound]

#15 the red box on the right is what Dr Who uses.... : )

[minnesota_bound]

#21 My new laptop has a SSD drive. It is a small rectangular circuit board.

4th photo on right
http://laptopmedia.com/highlights/inside-acer-aspire-e-15-e5-575g-disassembly-internal-photos-and-upgrade-options/

There is even room to add an old fashion spinning hard drive.

[duckman]

I own several plus audio cassette players/recorders, 8 track and Beta video.

[Crolis]

I think they are actively considering it, especially in $15/hr minimum wage localities. Basically the government just priced unskilled labor completely out of the workplace and screwed teenagers and others from being able to gain experience and skills.

[Quality_Not_Quantity]

Forgot the /sarc tag. Your comment is precisely what I was referring to.

[Crolis]

Considering several months ago I asked for cucumbers on my Subway sub and the young man behind the counter hesitated and then grabbed some green peppers, I think I’d prefer the robot.

[hanamizu]

There is an outfit—Family Video—that is trying to keep the video store idea still alive. They have DVDs, BluRays, and game disks for rent. Their gimmick is a Pizza place attached to the store. Go in grab a pizza to go and some movies. Kids’ movies are free. To my surprise they seem to be doing pretty good business.

Believe it or not, there are some of us that still don’t have usable high-speed internet. Just in the last 6 months I was able to upgrade from dial up to moderate-speed broadband. I’ve been able to stream ‘Grand Tour’ from Amazon Prime, but it isn’t hi def by any means. But much better than dial-up.

[djf]

Me too.
I had a Panasonic dual DVD-VHS player back in the late 90’s, and it died.

So I went to some electronics store and got a Magnavox dual DVD/VHS deck.

I have hundreds of DVD’s and lots of VHS’s. Most of my VHS’s are rarities or kinda older so I keep them.

Now to anyone who says they will never own a DVD player or whatever, I ask only one question.

Have you EVER been able to stream a movie without interruption? I might say that once or twice you might have been able to do it, but seriously, as a form of media delivery, is it consistently 99.999 percent reliable?

It’s not. It’s just not. I’ll keep my DVD’s.

[gymbeau]

Me, too. Plus BD and 4K.
Toys for boys and audio/video snobs!
Cheers,
Jim

[gymbeau]

Pretty good. I still like physical media for the titles that are most important to me, though. Disks crash.
Cheers,
Jim

[gymbeau]

I have that disc, too! Burned it to DVD, but wish it were anamorphic.
Still have a dozen or so laserdiscs but I don’t think anyone in Calgary wants them.
If Disney were smart they’d restore the original three SW movies to their original glory, but remastered to state of the art, and put them out in 4K and BD.
Cheers,
Jim

[ADemocratNoMore]

A few folks have posted about Laser Disks. I had an MCA Discovision player in the early 80’s and it was the high definition video format back in it's day. It was much better than VHS and given the right source material the picture was the the 80’s equivalent of 4k today.

I have two Japanese demo disks that were shot on film and high-end SD video equipment as well as the experimental NHK analog HD video cameras down-converted to SD and the images were, and are still stunning. While obviously not having the resolution of even a standard DVD there was something about the analog video signal that, to me has not been matched until the 4k revolution.

The best thing about DVDs and BDs IMHO is that they are recordable and playable in stand-alone home hardware. 4k still has a few too many flavors for me to consider a homebrew disk to be playable on every type of monitor.

[Future Snake Eater]

Rumor has it Disney is going to re-release the original trilogy in all it’s late-’70s/early-’80s glory.

I highly recommend the “Star Wars: Revisited” fan edit (you need to hunt it down via torrent). The guy(s) that worked on it are true fans and are pretty damned good, actually. It was put together as the version that the Special Edition should have been. They nailed it, too.

[ADemocratNoMore]

One more thing. There were a handful of HD Laserdisk players produced by Pioneer during the last year of the LD machines production run. I wonder if anybody here has seen what analog HD looks like ?

[ADemocratNoMore]

Wow ! I decided to see if this video was on Youtube and... it was ! It looses a little something by going digital but not too shaby for a 30+ year analog video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQcPwLpqwo

[ops33]

One of the cleverest marketing ideas ever.

[discostu]

Tucson still has our best rental place. But they survive by knowing their niche, hard to find art movies that aren’t at RedBox or Netflix.

[Future Snake Eater]

If you like that, then you'll love this.