DVD: am I the only one highly dissatisfied?

Great Debates
1

Thesis: DVD is a half-baked format that has no long-term viability. Further, it is creating chaos in the world of home video and will continue to do so.

There was a time in the early 80s when Betamax and VHS competed with each other. This was bad in that a video store usually didn’t stock copies of everything in both formats.

Still, each was a complete system. You could rent or buy video entertainment; you could tape shows from TV or other sources. You could stick a tape in a camcorder and film.

Ultimately, VHS won, and there was an era in which all one could want was on that format. Personally, this was convenient for me as Japan and the US used the very same format. Euroland, however, used a different system, godknowswhy.

Another point important for background here is LD, or Laserdisc. This was mainly a failure, but it still survives in Japan, barely. We have a LD player here, and we buy cheapie LDs to watch on it. The picture is excellent and the machine very easy to use. LD cannot be used to record programs.

With all this in mind, let’s look at what’s wrong with DVD.

  1. Incomplete system. You can watch, but you can’t record. Oh wait: you can record, but there are two incompatible formats. Twenty years on, we can still play the same CDs, burn CDs at will, and all is well. How will DVDs be doing in that regard in 20 years?

  2. Country codes. These codes prevent a DVD intended for one market from being played in a player for another market. That is, in theory, I can’t play a DVD I buy in the US in a machine here in Japan. (In practice, the machines can be altered to play anything, there are code-free discs, and code-free machines, etc.) The intent is, basically, to prop up prices in Japan and other markets where the customer is customarilly soaked for software. Given the chance to make a truly universal system, the greedy makers gave us this shit. Totally unacceptable.

  3. Shitty interface. Am I the only one who thinks this? The DVD controller, in my experience, is extremely counter-intuitive and hard to use. No, it’s not rocket science, but the first time I used the thing, the menus were very hard to figure out, and the ff and rewind perfectly pissy.

In contrast, the LD controller is a model of simplicity. It has a wheel that you can thumb for ff and rw at various speeds.

  1. Flippers. A problem with LD was that you had to flip over the disc. Some longish DVDs still require this.

  2. Scratches. The good thing about a DVD is that it will play forever IF you don’t scratch it. The bad news is that if you scratch the thing, it and you are fuct. Video stores apparently find the discs distasteful for this reason. If a DVD has gotten ruined by a subtle scratch or two (the worst ones are not deep and clear, but wide and opaque), the customer can just return it without paying the piper. Then the next customer gets a surprise. How much of a problem has this been?

  3. EVD. China has said “Fuck this” to the whole DVD mess and is pioneering its own system. Who can blame them? They didn’t feel like shelling out royalties for this shyte system:

http://www.medialinenews.com/issues/2003/november/dvd_3.shtml

  1. Looming obsolescence. I’m not fain to shell out bux to build a DVD collection, as I can’t imagine this system being around in 10 years. Consider this: your computer, if new, probably has a DVD player in it. It also has a hard drive that can store the same type of information. It’s also connected to the Net, which could provide the same type of info as well.

Logging onto a website and using a webpage interface to view movies in various formats would be preferable to the current DVD experience. It could be done pay-per-view or pay-per-download. Movie could be stored on the hard drive or on generic blanks (perhaps similar to CDs, which can also be used to store movies).

I really think DVDs an unattractive, half-arsed format, but I’d love to hear your opinions, whether pro or con.

2

OK, I’ll bite. Forget all the technical crap.

One word: Netflix.

You couldn’t do it with VHS or even LaserDisk. It’s the best bridge technology until video on demand (thru cable/satellite) is viable.

Then, of course, there’s all the technical crap. And don’t forget-- you don’t have to rewind!!

3

Sorry, the better picture and sound quality of DVD makes any of it’s other drawbacks worth it. Watching a movie on VHS or even Laserdisc is like watching shadows on the cave wall- it kind of approximates the movie, but you can barely claim you have actually seen the movie. The quality of a DVD finally makes home and small scale (classroom) viewing a decent substitute for watching something on film. Frankly, I’d stand on my head for twenty minutes before every movie if thats what it took to see and hear it clearly.

4

Gotta come back to this. Firstly, do you really think it’s just marketing? Heck, the next thing you’ll tell me is that you could sell bottled water with a fancy French name on it for 10x the price of gasoline. Come on!

Serioiusly, the technical advantages are beyond reckoning:

  • Video quality
  • the ability to skip to scenes
  • a paused image that doesn’t have the shakes
  • greater storage capacity (mutliple languages, screen sizes, etc.)
  • smaller form facter

and don’t forget its compatibility with audio CD technololgy allowing bonus video clips to be inserted on audio CDs.

Multiple formats (DVR) is a natural aspect of new technolgies. Early adopters have to be willing to (potentially) invest in the losing technology. Them’s is the breaks.

5

To put it politely, you are a luddite.

Isn’t this a problem with your beloved Laserdisc as well?

CD-recording is not as monolithic as you portray it; some audio CD players won’t accept data CD-Rs, and CD-RWs are dicey with even more hardware. And while there is a difference between DVD-R and DVD+R formats, the marketplace seems to be settling on DVD-R for maximum compatability, and newer players/recorders handle both formats with ease.

Annoying, but what can you do about it, other than grouse? It’s no worse than that Macrovision stuff they put on VCR tapes to prevent piracy.

Yes.

You’re picking at nits here. I seriously doubt the number of “flipper” DVDs exceeds more than 1% of the total number of DVDs on the market today.

And this differs from Laserdisc (or VHS, or Beta, or…) how? Any media requires some care.

Uh, yeah. Last I heard, Blockbuster was renting more DVDs than VHS tapes these days, and were estatic at the increased business they were doing as a result.

Your biggest problem here is broadband – it’s still not widely available to most people, and requiring them to have such a feature (usually by paying a monthly fee) to watch movies is unattractive. In contrast, DVD players are now dirt cheap, and discs can be delivered by sneakernet or the Postal Service, both of which are readily available to everyone.

DVDs have already achieved greater success and ubiquity than what your beloved LaserDisc could ever dream of. Is there any reason to throw out a bitter list of ungrounded excuses why you believe DVDs should fail?

6

I admit the picture is great. So are a bunch of the features. My point is that the format qua format is half-baked and not viable long-term. They could have done better; they should have done better.

7

Hey Rjung, I never said that LD was good–I think it failed for a reason.

I’m just saying I can’t feel enthusiastic about DVD–it’s not the ideal format it could have been.

8

For you perhaps, but regional encoding is a much bigger problem for people like the OP and myself. I has cost me hundreds of dollars in terms of higher DVD prices. I don’t see how Macrovision is comparable.

9

For you perhaps, but regional encoding is a much bigger problem for people like the OP and myself. It has cost me hundreds of dollars in terms of higher DVD prices. I don’t see how Macrovision is comparable.

10

Just a good, if not better, I’d say. There is always going to be a ramp-up period for any new technology.

Probably.

Up, down, left, right, and an enter button are counter-intuitive?

As well as some VHS movies (Lord of the Rings extended versions, anyone?).

Not by a long shot. There are devices you can buy that allow you to either fill in or buff off scratches. Plus, the error correction used by DVDs allow it to completely ignore minor scratches – as in the original data is recreated from the error correction codes

Yep, the next customer gets a nice, shiny, scratches freshly buffed out by the rental store, perfectly watchable DVD.

Actually, I’d rather have a scratched DVD than a VHS tape that’s been chewed up by a VCR. The DVD can be put back into pristine condition, whereas the VHS cannot.

And of course, this ignores all of the advanced features that make DVD so much better than VHS, such as sharper picture, clearer sound, multiple audio tracks, multiple subtitles, multiple camera angles, scene selection, crystal clear pause and frame advance, etc.

It’s pretty obvious that VHS is starting to take a back seat to DVD, much as audio cassettes have to CDs. In fact, if you look into any retail establishment, you’ll find that DVDs greatly outnumber their VHS counterparts.

11

In case I didn’t make myself clear, I’m not saying DVD isn’t better than VHS. I’m saying that it’s a disappointment considering what technology is currently possible.

ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED TOO OR NOT? It’s not a question of whether DVD is better than VHS or LD!

12

The issue isn’t what technology is currently possible, it’s what was possible five or six years ago, when DVD came out. The answer is not a helluva a lot. People were lucky to have dial-up, much less broadband. Hard drives were a few gigs at most. DVD technology was not just neat, it was amazing.

And we’re kind of stuck with that for now, because if they switched formats every thirty seconds we’d hear even more whining.

13

Personally I’m happy with the DVD format. And it has already been a success, so I don’t see how you can argue it as being a poor, unsuccessful format.

>1. Incomplete system. You can watch, but you can’t record. Oh wait: you can record, but there are two incompatible formats.
I thought most newer DVD players can play both DVD-R and DVD+R?

**> 2. Country codes. **
Standard are not purely consumer-driven; it has to make enough concessions to the recording industry so that they accept and promote the standard. Besides, region-free players are perfectly legal and readily available.

**>3. Shitty interface. **
What shitty interface? A DVD player’s interface consists of 4 arrow keys, a SELECT button, plus the regular set of stop/play/pause/etc buttons. How much simpler can it be? Some publishers do put fancy and complex menu screens, but that’s not the fault of the DVD standard.

>4. Flippers. A problem with LD was that you had to flip over the disc. Some longish DVDs still require this.
So how many hours is enough? If you make it 10 hours, you’d still have people complaining that they have to change disks halfway through a 24-episode TV series set.

**>5. Scratches. **
I haven’t found it to be a problem so far.

>6. EVD.
This makes the DVD format a poor one? How?

**>7. Looming obsolescence… Logging onto a website and using a webpage interface to view movies in various formats would be preferable to the current DVD experience. **
Not until broadband becomes faster and more widely available than it is now.

14

The only complaints I have about DVD are the region coding, encryption, Macrovision (yes, DVD players have it too), and “prohibited user actions”.

The audio CD is a nice, open, digital format. Any CD player can play any CD, because it’s just a big digitized sound wave with a bunch of index marks. CDs don’t make judgments about how or where you’re supposed to play them, they’re just media to move sound around, like a cassette.

DVD, on the other hand, is chock full of features that are intended to (1) restrict discs so they only play on certain players in certain countries, and (2) thwart the customer’s ability to control how he watches his own DVDs (can’t skip commercials, can’t run your DVD player through your VCR, can’t make a backup copy for safekeeping). None of those features has stopped piracy, they’ve only hurt consumers.

They’re compatible in the players, but not in the recorders. There are dual-format recorders for computers, but AFAIK none of the set-top recorders are compatible with both -R and +R.

15

DVD will get supplanted by a high-definition version of DVD. Probably within the next 5-10 years, they’re already fighting over the specs. I suspect that the new players will be backwards compatible with today’s DVD, just as todays players are compatible with CD.

The only reason that CD hasn’t been replaced by DVD audio technology is that customers are satisfied with the resolution available on CD. There is little reason for Joe Average consumer to get the DVD-Audio or SACD version of their favorite album.

This won’t be the case with DVD video. Once HDTV becomes commonplace, we’ll want DVDs that give us full HDTV resolution, that will be the new technology. If HDTV wasn’t on the horizon, DVD would stay around for a very long time.

16

what about the dvds that do not work on region free players?

17

Cheesesteak said it all regarding what is coming.

As to the things like regional codes and macrovision encoding, don’t blame those on the technology. Blame those on the ever paranoid MPAA. Mr. Valenti and Company who are so paranoid that they don’t want several hundred DVDs released to members of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. They’re afaid Oscar voters will pirate their precious movies!

These are the people who make their livings in film. And the MPAA doesn’t trust them.

By the way you can easily defeat both without hundreds of dollars of expense. A Macrovision free, regional code free DVD player can be had for about $180. Region free for about $60.

18

My husband hates the sound (the fluctuation between action scenes and regular scenes, which I attribute to the fucking action flick genre, not the medium) and he hates the wide screen format on our regular tv. I keep trying to tell him half the movies on TV come across as letterbox, widescreen, or whatever, but he’s not hearing it.

I like it. It may not be perfect, but then, what is?

19

What kind of VCR have you been using? The picture and sound quality on mine is so close to seeing the movie in a theatre, the difference isn’t noticeable.

DVDs are fine and everything, but really, the difference in picture quality isn’t THAT great.

20

DVD is a vast improvement over VHS (higher quality and better features), and a moderate improvement over Laserdisc (more easily portable and less expensive).

Why the hell would I be disappointed? Sure, it’s not perfect… but when I can buy a DVD player for less than $100 and a presentation masterpiece like the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions for less than $30 a pop, I’m actually pretty elated with the medium. It’s better than anything else currently available.