DVD Basics
- If you already know the DVD basics, and want to make a DVD, Click HERE
DVD stands for "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc". However it really means "Very large capacity CD with advanced multimedia support".
What ever you call it the DVD picture and sound quality is dramatically superior to VHS (Video Tapes). The DVD is more versatile compared to the VHS.
DVD is a new technology enabling you to experience high quality films at home. It's taken movie viewing to another level from the old VHS. Nearly all-major Hollywood film studios are now releasing new, older and classic titles on DVD, letting movie lovers watch their favorite films in a digital format never seen before.
- Whats the viewing quality like?
DVD is the latest technology, which offers the best movie viewing experience available to date. The standard VHS resolution is 210 horizontal lines. The laser discs provide 425 horizontal lines and DVD resolution is 540 lines of resolution. With DVD you can choose to watch movies in wide-screen, letterbox or a panned format. The actual picture on the TV from DVD is a lot sharper and the colours are vividly truer. So to experience the full affect of 'DVD Cinema' at home you would need a fairly large TV being of high quality.
- Whats the sound quality like?
All of the DVD players allow you to listen to your audio CD's. This gives a much richer sound because the sampling rate is higher than with audio CDs. With DVD's you will experience Dolby Surround Sound enhancing your sound experience
Content Scrambling System (CSS) or 'Regional Coding' are DVD discs that are coded for the region of the world they're intended for. This means that movies from Region 1 (USA & Canada) will not play on a DVD player from regions 2-6. This also works vice-versa, where region 1 discs can only play on region 1 DVD players, and region 2 discs can only play on region 2 DVD players and so on.
The regional coding was introduced by the DVD Forum (responsible for DVD standards), because the movie studios wanted a way to protect their investments in new films. This is because the US region 1 usually gets the latest film releases first. This is to prevent other countries say Europe (region 2) to purchase the film when released in the US.
Here are the different regions for the different parts of the world.
Region 1 - USA, Canada Region 2 - Europe and Japan Region 3 - India, Pakistan and the whole Asian Pacific Region 4 - Latin America, Australia, New Zealand Region 5 - Africa, Russia and Eastern Europe Region 6 - China and Hong Kong
- What other uses does DVD have?
Other uses for DVD other than for movies include: -
- Animation (Animated cartoon films)
- Karaoke
- Music
- Special Interest (Include things like Altius - On Air Extreme Sports)
- To make and author a DVD, Click HERE
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