DVD-Video (1996 - ) | Museum of Obsolete Media (original) (raw)
DVD-Video is a digital optical disc storage format for video playback, developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic. It was initially available in Japan in 1996, and reached the US in 1997 followed by Europe in 1998. The first movie to be released on the new DVD-Video format was Twister, which also happened to be the last film released on HD-DVD.
In 1993, two new optical disc video formats were being developed, Multimedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the Super Density (SD) disc, supported by a number of other manufacturers. Eventually, a joint standard was agreed.
Movie distributors adopted the DVD-Video format to replace the ubiquitous VHS as it produced superior picture and sound quality, could provide interactivity, and the storage capacity allowed for extras or bonus features such as audio commentaries, deleted scenes and trailers. Players were also cheaper to manufacture than complex video tape machines.
Each DVD-Video disc contains one or more region codes, denoting the area(s) of the world in which distribution and playback are intended. The commercial DVD player specification dictates that a player must only play discs that contain its region code but in practice, many DVD players allow playback of any disc, or can be modified to do so.
Currently, DVD-Video is the dominant form of home video distribution worldwide, although in Japan it was surpassed by Blu-ray Disc in 2016. It is now, however, facing competition from video on demand services.