BookmarkAll About DVD Players
History
Though it may be difficult to remember life without DVDs, they've only been around a little over a decade. It was 1994 when two companies, Phillips and Sony, embarked on a crusade to replace CDs as the primary technology for data storage. Their quest subsequently spilled over into replacing VHS and LaserDiscs as the main movie storage format.
Once the major computer companies, such as Microsoft and Apple, got wind of this endeavor, the race was on to ensure a uniform format standard that could be translated to any system. Once the major electronic companies settled on a standard format, the rest, as they say, is history.
How DVD players work
A DVD player works in basically the same way as a CD player: it reads the data off the disc using a laser; only DVD players use a shorter wavelength laser in order to read smaller pockets where the data is stored. Simply put, the smaller the pockets, the more information that can be stored. In addition, DVDs can store information on both sides of the disc.
For the sake of comparison, a CD can hold approximately 20 minutes of compressed video, while a DVD can holds upwards of about 135 minutes, and that's just per layer. In other words, a double-sided DVD can hold almost 9 hours of video. Now that's a lot of movie viewing!
A few perks of DVD players
DVD players play more than twice the amount of horizontal resolution (540 lines) than VHS players.
The sound quality on DVDs is much better because they sample audio at much higher rates.
DVD player software allows it to display movies in their original widescreen format thanks to it being able to support multiple aspect ratios.
Up to 32 language tracks can be stored on DVDs.
Who doesn't love the special features on DVDs? DVD players allow you to view such things as director's cuts, alternate endings, deleted scenes, and commentary.
Odds and ends
It seems the more advanced things get, the smaller they become. You can get portable DVD players that are easy to move, and there are always contests and ads promising free DVD players and free DVD player downloads. It's not hard to get your hands on a DVD player these days.
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