Getting a DVD -- is it worth it?

Getting a DVD -- is it worth it?

Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta

It seems that the Digital Video Disc, DVD, is becoming rather
popular in Jakarta. Previously, finding a player here was next to
impossible -- if not extremely expensive. Now, one can browse
through any mall, shop or electronics exhibition to find the
latest DVD player for sale at a very reasonable price.

It's not just individual players that are available. Power
users can also add DVD-ROM drives to their PC's, to view movies
or to read massive amounts of data. You can now even rent DVDs to
watch the best digital motion pictures Hollywood has on offer.

But what exactly is DVD?

DVD was heralded to be the next generation of optical disc
storage technology, replacing the Compact Disc for music, VHS
(and now defunct Laser Disc) for movies and the computer hard
drive for data. While maintaining the same size of a regular CD,
the DVD can hold more then four times the capacity for music and
data. Thus, a multi-VCD movie you buy at the store can fit on one
DVD and still have room to spare for extra features.

The picture quality from a DVD is fantastic. Compared to a
VCD, where upon close inspection the movie seems a bit blurry and
pixilated, DVD provides crystal clear pictures with superior DTS
(Digital Theater Systems) digital surround sound. Also, movies on
VHS actually degrade over time and are prone to fungus (which
destroys the tape), while DVDs can last practically forever, as
it is stored using digital technology.

And one must not forget the extra features. Multiple languages
or dubbings and subtitles are standard for DVDs. You can also get
commentary from the stars or director on a separate audio
channel, providing interesting trivia while you watch the movie.
There's even space for a small feature depicting how they made
the film.

Although it took a while for it to be a successful consumer
product, the DVD does have a few problems, principally involving
region locking.

The motion picture industry wanted to control the release of
movies around the world using DVD region codes. Movies are
released on DVD's at different times around the world. For
example, the US and Canada are first, Australia and Japan three
months later, Europe five months and Asia two months after that.
As such, while a Harry Potter (for example) DVD is available for
the U.S. market, Asia has (perhaps) yet to premiere the movie in
theaters.

Thus, using region locking, people in Asia would not be able
to view a DVD they bought at Amazon.com on Asian DVD players,
because their equipment is instructed not to play US region
discs. So people will have to go to the theaters first to see the
film.

Unfortunately, with globalization and the advances in
technology, such regional strategies are becoming obsolete. Some
manufactures are providing region free DVD players that will play
a disc from any part of the world. Consumers believe that, since
they bought the disc, they should have the right to see their
property on their players, wherever they may be.

Another problem is the relatively high cost of a DVD disc. At
the moment, licensed DVD movies sell for about Rp 200,000 and
upwards. One should be aware of pirated products, as some of them
are actually edited copies of a hand held video camera in a
theater. Such rampant piracy also affects the revenues of the
movie studios and may prompt them to reconsider releasing their
films here.

You can also play DVD's on computers via a DVD-ROM drive. It
is recommended to have a system with a Pentium 3, software DVD
player and an MPEG decoder board (recommended). These drives also
double as CD-ROMs, so most DVD-ROM's can read various versions of
CD's, such as CD-R's (Compact Disc Recordable) and CD-RW (Compact
Disc ReWritable).

Making DVD's is a bit more problematic. There are least at
four different recording standards that are sometimes not
compatible with each other. Supported by different hardware
manufactures, these different formats are battling out a VHS-
versus-Betamax type war for supremacy. Before you have illusions
of making your own DVD film, the available equipment for the
different standards (DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD+RW) is still
in the thousands of dollars.

Is it worth getting a DVD player or drive? It all depends.
Whereas before we rented movies on video, it is now extremely
difficult to find a place that rents VHS tapes anymore. VCD's are
satisfactory but may lack some things (digital picture, surround
sound, etc.) for the average movie collector. Technology
continually advances so at some point we will have to go forward
with them. Do you want your DVD?