When the smoke has cleared

[stephenj]

Originally Posted by EricJ

I got my first-ever DVD player in June 1999, to commemorate DiVX Armistice Day--
I'd like to say it was my way of smooching a nurse in Times Square, but truth was, I was hoping to dance on DiVX's grave and get a converted player at Circuit City clearance on the cheap...Suffice to say, I didn't.

The weeks of July and August afterwards, though, were the Golden Age to be a newly adopted DVD fan:
To be a DVD supporter in '97 meant isolated geek conversations about Twister and Interview With the Vampire...But to have gotten your first player during those '99 "Starter-pistol" days meant cool conversations about "OMG!--They restored Yellow Submarine!" "Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, you have to own this one!" "Dude, it's all about the Matrix..."

As someone who got a DVD player in April 97, i can assure you that summer 1999 was a great time to have been into it for 2 years: I was able to sell about 90 of the DVDs i bought between 97-99 at an average of about $12 each, and thus fund even more home theater purchases, because all you newbies were flooding in and it was a seller's market.

Beyond that, the discussions in 97 were very lively, including:

- bitter debates between laser disc die-hards and DVD adopters
- creative ways to get around the 6-city test zone in a pre-amazon pre-ebay online world
- speculation about when hold-outs like disney and fox were going to start making DVDs
- the evilness of Divx
- the paucity of "anamorphic" titles ...

hey, sounds a lot like .. NOW!