Remember how well DVD was doing back in 1999? *GREAT READ*

[SBrooks1]

Someone posted this over at HDD and I thought it was a great read. Do you remember what it was like for DVD 2 years into it's inception? Rev up the Delorian Marty! 'Cause we're going BACK.......to the future!

Notable comparisions...

~ DVD putting Divx out of business like Blu-ray did with HD DVD
~ Blu-ray is predicted to have 10 million player sales in it's 3rd year - By contrast, just 1.58 million DVD players were sold in that format's third year on the market in 1999
~ Titanic is released as a bare bones DVD for $29.99. We see some bare bones Blu-ray's now selling for $29.99 or more.

A LITTLE DISC HITS THE BIG TIME AFTER TWO YEARS, THE DVD, WITH ITS SUPERB PICTURE AND SOUND, IS CHANGING HOME ENTERTAINMENT
By RON GIVENS DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER

Thursday, August 26th 1999, 2:11AM

Three little letters are revolutionizing the way we watch movies at home. DVD.

The abbreviation stands for Digital Video (or Versatile) Disc, which can deliver an entire movie with far better picture and sound than a videocassette, even though a DVD is only the size of a compact disc.

In fact, the DVD, introduced in March 1997, is already starting to affect the movie industry the way that the CD changed the music business.

DVD has already put a competing digital technology, Divx, out of business, and major movie studios have lined up behind DVD.

Last week, Walt Disney Co. announced that some of its major animated movies - including "Pinocchio," "The Little Mermaid," "Peter Pan," "Lady and the Tramp," "The Jungle Book" and "Mulan" - will be released on DVD this fall.

"We dubbed it 'the millennial gift,'" says Mitch Koch, president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment, the Disney distribution division, which decided to release the movies now because more families are buying players and discs.

In the past year, sales of DVD players have exploded. Home electronics analysts say the number of households with the units will have quadrupled to 4 million from the end of last year to the end of 1999.

"The market for DVD players is about to go really crazy - where everybody knows about them and everybody wants one," says Corey Wade, who manages DVD research for Alexander and Associates, a company that consults for the home-entertainment industry.

DVD has become the hottest thing in consumer electronics because it offers a much better way to experience movies than VHS does.

"I love it," says Robert Gall, a 29-year-old truck driver from Kenilworth, N.J., who got a DVD player last Christmas. "The picture quality is fantastic and the sound is even better. I think it brings more of the movie out."

Gall has this high opinion even though he doesn't take full advantage of DVD's ability to deliver theater-quality surround sound. He plays his movies through a stereo system, which cannot match the spatial effects that come with a fully deployed, six-speaker DVD system.

Consumers can, like Gall, get improved picture and sound using DVD without having to spend lots of money to upgrade their current home-entertainment setup. The new generation of DVD players are more affordable, selling for as little as $250, and they can plug into most recent TV models. Of course, the difference in quality between DVD and VHS will become greater if you have a bigger screen and more speakers.

DVD has other advantages over videocassettes. The discs won't wear out after repeated use. A user can move almost immediately to virtually any scene in a movie without having to fast-forward or rewind. And DVD players can be used for regular audio CDs, too.

Many DVD versions of movies also come with tantalizing extras - "Casablanca," for example, includes a documentary about the making of the movie, hosted by Lauren Bacall. The DVD for "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" has a separate audio track where you can hear Mike Myers and director Jay Roach chat throughout the movie.

The one thing these DVD players cannot do is record programs, and consumer-electronics experts say it will be at least a couple of years before affordable DVD recorders are on sale. That means that VHS will still dominate the home-video marketplace. More than 90% of households have VCRs, compared with about 3% with DVD players. Also, there are still many more titles available on cassette (68,000) than on disc (4,000).

Gall, for one, cannot wait for there to be more kids titles for his two young ones to enjoy.

"I paid $20 for Barney tapes, and my daughter will watch them over and over again, and they'll wear out," he says.

While more studios are putting out movies on DVD, it can be hard to find older titles in stores like Blockbuster, which rents discs and cassettes for the same fee. Disney's recent move represents a breakthrough, but George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have yet to put out their blockbuster movies on DVD. "Titanic," however, will be in stores next month.

The future of DVD, however, will almost certainly go far beyond a galaxy called Hollywood. By some estimates, more than 15 million home computers have been sold with DVD-ROM drives, which can play back movies on a monitor and hook a DVD to the Internet.

In fact, that particular scenario has already come to a monitor near you. If you play the DVD for "You've Got Mail" on a computer with Internet access, it will connect you to a Web site where you can send "You've Got Mail" greeting cards or search for online romance.

"Playing movies on a DVD is using 21st-century technology for 20th-century content," says Bruce Apar, editor in chief and associate publisher of Video Business, a trade magazine.

No one knows where entertainment will go in the next century, but DVD seems certain to take us there.


SIDEBAR:

Bare-bones 'Titanic' sets mark

'Titanic" has once again sailed into the Hollywood record books, this time as the best-selling DVD to date, with more than 1 million units just shipped to retailers.

Despite DVD's main selling point as a feature-packed video, Paramount's "Titanic" DVD is devoid of the format's typical extras: The $29.99 DVD, which will be in stores Tuesday, won't have such bells and whistles as behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, music videos and scripts.

But the lack of extra features may not hurt it. Industryites project that sales could reach the 3-4 million mark. The disaster epic is already the highest-grossing motion picture ever, at $1.8 billion worldwide, and best-selling videocassette in history, selling 60 million copies.

Home-video experts are also looking at "The Matrix" DVD release on Nov. 26 as another blockbuster seller that could easily top the million-unit mark.

The lack of extras in the "Titanic" DVD can be traced to writer-director-editor James Cameron, who rarely includes additional footage or other bonuses on the first home-video editions of his pictures, opting to wait until a year or two later to release a collector's edition.

The picture's three-hour-plus length also was a consideration in putting the picture and the trailer onto one disc.

- REUTERS

[jswilli1]

I bought my first DVD player in 1999 prior to leaving the Navy. I bought the Sony model 7700 which was the reference model at the time. It was basically a DVD player with a ES quality CD player built in at that time. I paid over $1000 dollars for it at the time. I still own it but it was replaced when I bought the PS3. It was a great machine.

[HeavyHitter]

I bought my first DVD player the day after Christmas in 1999. It was the Sony 360 model. I paid $299 for it at Montgomery Wards. I just remember thinking how cool it was to have movies on disc and thinner cases compared to VHS. Of course, the PQ quality over VHS was quite noticable even on my 27" RCA interaced CRT.

[DetroitSportsFan]

I bought my first DVD player (RCA) in early 1998 for $300-$400. It still works, my daughter watches movies on it.

It appears that Blu-Ray is outpacing DVD in sales for the same time frame, which is a great accomplishment.

[AlexCruz]

Wow we're in the same situation ten years later. I wasn't around for the early days of DVD, but it's been pretty cool experiencing the earlier days for Blu-ray.

[stockstar1138]

one thing though.

PS2 really helped push DVD into peoples houses back in 2000/01.

Blu-ray has already used its "Playstation boost".

Still blu-ray is doing terrific.

[Cromlech]

I'm not all that old (23), and I remember back when Gladiator came out on DVD in HMV. It was about £20-22, which is just about $40.

[jswilli1]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

one thing though.

PS2 really helped push DVD into peoples houses back in 2000/01.

Blu-ray has already used its "Playstation boost".

Still blu-ray is doing terrific.

True the PS2 helped push DVD into homes considering the games were also a DVD format just like PS3 uses a Blu-Ray format for games.

[The Gnome]

Good god i cant believe i remeber this.... my first two DVD's were Gladiator and Xmen... I sure as hell dont remember what i did for a player? I think it might have been a PS2

[jswilli1]

Good thing DVD was the size of a CD, can you imagine if DVD remained the size of a Laser Disc?

[Wondermaker]

Surreal read, indeed. I believe my family got our first DVD player - a Sony 5-disc carousel model - in 2000, and some of the first DVDs we owned were the IMAX feature Wolves and the Collector's Edition of DINOSAUR.

So Blu-ray finds itself in the same early stages. One of the only differences between now and then is the massive internet influence, compared to the smaller number of casual web users 10 years ago. And of course the online FUD campaign that has come with it.

[Bonifax]

I bought my first DVD player on 1999, it was a Phillips model with 5.1 analog outputs ($400) and the first movies I bought were Dracula and U-turn. My receiver was a Sony with 5.1 analog input and my TV was a 27" Sony Trinitron. I think DVD really was a huge step in home entertaniment compared to VHS.

[meckel]

Got my 1st player way back in 1997 (held off getting a LD player after reading about DVD) the day the CC I worked at got them in stock. Luckly it was my day off, was at the store by 10 had it working by noon. Paid around $400 w/ my discount. Got 4 movies to, I know one was Batman, wish I could remember the other 4. Still have the Panasonic DVDA1 in my son's room.

[RustyK94]

History is repeating it self it would seem and i think blu-ray will be bigger than dvd sooner than we think.

[JasonS]

My first DVD player was the PS2. Actually was able to snag one of those launch week which was a big deal since console launches were really picking up then and making them hard to find items. I think my first DVD ever was 'Loser' with Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari. haha.

[ThePhantomOak]

I like the price point. Super inexpensive at $250.

BD players can be had at that price with very little effort, and there are still people (media reporters) claiming it wont catch on because of price.

Second is that DVD took off (at least in Japan) BECAUSE of PS2, not with the help of. PS2 put a DVD in every home that had a game consol, while Dreamcast was using CD.

Today, PS3 is putting a BD player in every home that has a consol, while 360 uses DVD...



I am not shocked that what Sony is doing is still working. PS2 was a AAA business plan, that made it pricy, with a poor game lineup, and an unproven tech. DOOMED to fail. Then they sold 120m units.

[xander]

That's awesome. I remember getting my first Sony (no clue on model) in 99 for about $500 with the per diem cash I got for a six month stint in Italy while in the Air Force. I felt pretty cool in the dorm at that time, demo'ing the opening club scene from Blade for the entire floor over and over again. I like to think I made them true believers. I remember how blown away I was by the full motion menu screens! (and showing those off too) Good times.

[Grant Matrix]

Wow that really brings back memories. I got my first DVD player for Christmas 1998 (the first and last Toshiba product I would ever own.) and spent $100 less than a PS3 for it. WOW that really makes the price of the PS3 not too bad in retrospec. I had bought my first movie Lethal Weapon 4 a couple weeks earlier in anticipation. I remember how huge the Disney news was at the time in 99.

[Nick Graham]

The difference is that Titanic had an MSRP of 29.99, which meant it was 19.99 at the local Wal-Mart. Today a new release is a 39.99 MSRP which means 29.99 at the local Wal-Mart.

The biggest complaint I have heard from friends and co-workers over the last few months about Blu-Ray is software price. They have HDTVs, and nominal sound systems, but when they see a new release going for $29.99, it's just a non-starter for them, and it's going to be that way no matter how many titles and players are available at Wal-Mart.

[Beta Man]

My first DVD player in 1997 was a steal at $800

Things that make me go Hmmmmmm



1) I collected "about" 1,200 DVDs from the time I got my first DVD player, until now.

2) at my current rate of purchase I'm behind in Blu-Ray purchases, and will be at just under 1,000 11 years from now....

3) if I purchase as many Blu-Rays Per year, as I purchased DVDs over the past Two-years however, my total in 11 years will be closer to 2,500 (High Blu-Prices have kept me from buying 10 per week like I often did with DVDs)


Basically my collection-rate will be somewhere between that..... I'm in a better position to build my collection than I was 11 years ago, I am going to have a dedicated theater (which will necessitate more collecting ) But now I have a wife-factor to keep me from buying too many, and a "kid" factor to justify buying even more that I normally wouldn't have It's a tightrope Spud... A F'in tightrope!