DVD The Ultimate Consumer Digital Media

Digital Video Disc or as it is sometimes referred to Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) has for the last several years been Hollywood's primary video delivery method and with good cause. This inexpensive, compact media delivers excellent video and audio quality. This same media has also become the preferred medium for many multi-media professionals and audiophiles. Technological advancement and availability have pushed this media into the consumer market for a number of reasons and its use and popularity will only increase over time. I will attempt to highlight some of the advantages this medium offers. This article is only intended to be an introduction to this incredibly diverse digital media and not to be considered a technical thesis.

The video quality of DVD is superb; offering greater resolution, more vivid color and higher contrast than VHS tape. DVD Video also allows for a number of features simply not available on VHS tape such as on-screen menus, chapters, and sub-chapters that allow for easy navigation. Multi-speed fast forward and rewind, multi-language support, multiple camera angles and a number of other enhancements too numerous to mention here.

DVD audio quality is excellent surpassing that of Compact Disc (CD) with a sample rate of 24 bits and a frequency response of 192 KHz which is several times that of the CD specification. Not to mention that the DVD specification supports multi-channel Surround Sound. It a nutshell DVD audio delivers a more high fidelity audio experience. Although CD is still more widely used for audio, as technology progresses the DVD will likely become the dominant media.

Conservative estimates as to the longevity of DVD are upwards of 35 years or more with proper handling. This is due to the fact that the only thing that touches the DVD's surface during playback is a tiny laser beam. Whereas VHS playback requires the use of a mechanical head that actually comes in contact with the tape and degrades the surface. Now with the Advent of D-Skin disc protectors? which is a plastic cover that can be placed on the DVD and left on during playback the durability factor has just increased significantly.

For archiving DVD is the ultimate digital media not only because of its compact dimensions and ample storage space; 4.7 GB single sided & 9.4 GB double-sided or 8.5 GB dual-layer respectively. But because of the many different kinds of data that can be stored on it. Photos, movies, audio, text, graphics and other media types can all co-exist on a single disc. This kind of versatility is just not possible with any other readily available media.

As for the future of DVD; advances in technology will see the advent of greater storage capacity, higher video and audio quality, and an ever expanding feature set.

Copyright 2005

Jay Corrao is the founder and president of Memory Archivers, a video production company based in Apple Valley Minnesota. His company specializes in wedding and event videograpy, video biographies, and consumer digital archiving.

http://www.memoryarchivers.com
jay@memoryarchivers.com

Latest News


Personal Tech: Military launches TroopTube
Salt Lake Tribune, United States - Nov 17, 2008
Members can upload personal videos from anywhere with an Internet connection, but a Pentagon employee screens each for taste, copyright violations and ...

Personal Tech: Tennesee boasts world's fastest unclassified computer
Salt Lake Tribune, United States - Nov 17, 2008
AP The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. released this photograph Nov. 10 showing some of the 284 computer cabinets ...

Jamaica Gleaner

Is your broker, motor insurer tech savvy?
Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica - 10 hours ago
Tim Ryles, PhD, in an article dated September 2008 - 'The Insurer's Duty at the Outset of a Personal Lines Claim' - wrote that the United States Supreme ...

TV's Interactive Future Arrives Today, Combining Social Media With ...
MarketWatch - Nov 21, 2008
An irreverent weekly tech/web culture show hosted by tech geeks/pop culture gurus Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose, Diggnation was launched in 2005. ...
Interactive Multi-Cam Video Feed Almost Steals Kevin Rose's Digg ... Wired News
all 9 news articles

Bleacher Report

On College Football: If Texas Tech slips, dominoes will fall
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA - Nov 22, 2008
By Ray Parrillo The 2008 darling of college football, second-ranked Texas Tech, can take one more step toward the BCS championship game tonight when it ...
A rank way to decide conference Yahoo! Sports
Texas Tech Red Raiders @ Oklahoma Sooners Crimson and Cream Machine
Former players recall Tech’s outright conference title Houston Chronicle
International Herald Tribune - RedRaiders.com
all 1,379 news articles

Personal Tech: Black Friday is a bright day for gadget lovers
Salt Lake Tribune, United States - Nov 17, 2008
The day after Thanksgiving, also known as "Black Friday," is one of the biggest shopping days of the year because that's when stores introduce hot deals for ...

15 Tech Secrets for the Serious Road Warrior
PC World - Nov 21, 2008
In the past, we've described how to accomplish more with popular online tools like Google Calendar, with text-messaging utilities like Web-based personal ...

Product Reviews

Nvidia to offer parallel tech for mobile devices
NetworkWorld.com, MA - Nov 19, 2008
Nvidia announced Tuesday a GPU-based Tesla Personal Supercomputer, which it said uses its Tesla GPUs and Cuda to deliver the power of a cluster of computers ...
Thanks to gamers, the desktop supercomputer arrives Computerworld
Tokyo Tech Builds First Tesla GPU Based Heterogeneous Cluster to ... MarketWatch
nVIDIA launches Tesla supercomputer Hindu
Reg Hardware - DigiTimes
all 216 news articles

Personal Tech: Digital frame shows pictures from phones
Salt Lake Tribune, United States - Nov 10, 2008
By Peter Svensson Ap Technology Writer The Cameo digital picture frame can receive picture messages over the cellular network. ...

Solutions: How to rip music from a DVD
Tampabay.com, FL - Nov 21, 2008
Send questions to personaltech@sptimes.com or Personal Tech, PO Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731. Questions are answered only in this column.

Resources


    Sorry there are no resources available at this time