DVD - You've Come A Long Way Baby

[George Bellefontaine]

This Spring will mark the 5th anniversary of the DVD disc. It sure has come a long way from those (better than laserdisc) non-anamorphic transfers to Columbia's Superbits. I remember when laserdiscs boasted 10,000 titles. I haven't checked lately, but I'd bet DVD has already reached or surpassed that number. Anyone know for sure the number of titles in the dvd catalogue ?




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[Lex]

Wow, 5 years, has it been that long? I got my first player in July that year. Sony S7000. I waited, but well worth the wait, was a good player for the first 3 years. lol.

Not sure how many titles George.

Lex

[P-Dub]

From Digitalbits.com, Total DVD titles as of 1/2/02 are 13,888. That is only for Region 1 DVD's, adult titles not included.

A total of 25 million players have been sold, from manufacturers to retailers, not including Dec 2001 sales. So I would guess about 27 million players to the end of the 2001, and probably over 30 million by the anniversary date in March 2002. Also the number does not include Canadian sales, PS2 sales, X-box sales, or DVD rom drives. Though the numbers do include Divx players.

Pretty fast adoption rate.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[George Bellefontaine]

Almost 14,000 titles, WOW ! And at the rate they're being released it won't be long before they reach the 20,000 mark.Now , if we can just get J6P to adopt widescreen everything will be well for the future.




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[John Holmes]

It has been a fun ride. Let's keep the party going.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[John Holmes]

"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Burke Strickland]

It sure has come a long way from those (better than laserdisc) non-anamorphic transfers to Columbia's Superbits

Actually, some of the very first DVDs didn't look any better than the very best LDs of that time. People even asked on public forums "what's the big deal"?" Of course, others were smitten from "disc one" -- some of the first discs were very good indeed, even if non-anamorphic. And it seemed, in the face of the new competition, the LD vendors were trying at the end to really "sharpen up" their product. But of course, they were doomed, since the LD medium just isn't technically capable of reaching the image quality that DVD quickly attained. And there are other advantages to DVD as well, such as form factor. Despite that, at the very beginning, a number of hardcore LD fans predicted that DVD would NEVER replace LD. (Still run into a few from time to time who haven't "given up" that hopeless fight, even today.) :>)

Also don't forget that Madacy and other "bottom feeders" jumped in with a relatively big catalog (for the time) of incredibly terrible-looking DVDs of public domain titles that could have sunk the DVD medium if enough people had gotten ahold of them first without seeing the "good" ones to compare them against... and those lables STILL put out wretched looking crap... but they don't dare charge "regular DVD" prices anymore for those "coaster" discs. :>)

Of course, nearly five years later, LD is dead except as a used-market niche (far smaller niche than it had when they were sold new) and DVD is about to displace VHS as the mainstream movie medium of choice (which may not be such a good thing, given J6P's predeliction for P&S). DVD is here to stay (at least until the next great thing comes along.) :>)

The average quality of the discs is far better than when DVD first got started... and nearly 700 titles (in my collection) later, I've sure been enjoying the ride! (And the increase in quality.) :>) Those five years sure went by quickly...

Burke

[George Bellefontaine]

Burke,
The increased resolution of the early dvds compared to laserdisc was quite noticable to me. At the time I was using a 100" diagonal screen with a Zenith crt projector in my home theater. However, I'd have to agree that there were indeed several non-anamorphic dvds that were crappo. In fact, my ld version of The Fifth Element was better than some dvds. Of course, I own the Superbit DVD version now and there is no comparison to my old ld copy.




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