I think I just passed my first DVD Ten Year Anniversary ...

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Stuart McLean

Created on:
10-1-2009 13:22

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ChangesPosted by Stuart McLean on 10-1-2009 13:22

I was just thinking. I bought a 'Space Precinct' DVD in 1998 / 1999. That means I've been a slave to the silver platter for somewhere around the ten year mark. I guess that made me a relatively early adopter. I certainly stopped buying VHS's almost immediately after that first DVD.

Curiously I've been slow to move to BLU-Ray. Is that a result of being 10 years older and therefore less likely to be an 'early adopter'? I hope not. Most of what I buy these days is vintage TV sets so the upgrade to Blu-Ray is rarely an option and even when it is they've generally fiddled with the aspect ratios to 'modernise it'. Grrrr.

Having said that, I know the cross over will be inevitable eventually. (Sigh)

So - time to dust off some of those early discs and give them a second spin!

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ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 12-1-2009 01:08

Funnily enough when I read this article, I thought to myself "I haven't been a DVD junkie quite that long", but then I started reckoning up when I bought my first DVD. It was Austin Powers 2 and I think I bought it the week it came out. So I checked when that was and yep - 1999.

I stopped buying VHSs pretty much immediately, and set forth buying all my new releases on DVD and replacing select titles from my VHS collection.

Almost ten years on (I bought the machine I think just before Xmas 1999), I don't have a single pre-recorded VHS in the house. I have a few home recordings of tv shows I keep meaning to transfer to DVD+R, but I keep putting transferring them off.

I bought into Blu-ray the week after HD-DVD rolled over on its back - a PS3 . Although I have yet to upgrade my 720p LG tv to a 1080p, the difference in quality to DVD is still a source of amazement. I think I'm lucky in that the LG set I chose does a bang up job of displaying upscaled SD material from my DVD player. SD material off the cable or Freeview can look totally cack, frankly.

I'm still buying DVDs, mind. Mostly tv shows which are of course in SD, but I push the boat out for new movie releases and pick them up in glorious HD. Over Christmas I treated myself to WALL-E, The Dark Knight, Hellboy II, Indiana Jones 4, and The Mummy 3, and the region-free Region A of the Get Smart movie which doesn't hit UK screens until the end of February. All would look great on DVD, but on BD look absolutely stonking.

Here's to the next ten years, and when that comes around trying to persuade a certain Mr McLean to invest in a new plasma holograph display.

ChangesPosted by Robert John Shepherd on 12-1-2009 12:41

I remember buying a Pioneer for £350, which at that time was considered a budget unit. It was certainly the cheapest you could get, and I invalidated the warranty within 5 minutes of getting it home by opening it up and putting a blob of solder on a point to make it multi-region.

I can't remember if that was 98 or 99, but it was definitely a few years after I'd completely given up on the rip off format that VHS was.

ChangesPosted by Jitendar Canth on 12-1-2009 18:50

Sony DVP S336 I think, which cost me £270 no tell a lie it was £320 as I got it chipped. I only ever bought one Region 3 disc while I owned it though. I made the mistake of being Green with it, aka switching it off at the plug every night. Damn thing only lasted me a year and a bit, and that included a £70 repair just after the guarantee ran out.

I'm trying to remember if it was this millennium or last... I think it might have been 2000 that I jumped aboard the bandwagon. First discs, the Matrix, Blade Runner, and another Warners title before I even bought the machine. I got Deep Blue Sea, Analyse This and City Of Angels free with it. It was back when thety were still trying to establish DVD as a market standard, and gave software away with it.

Mistakes I made included buying the original (non-anamorphic) Seven, and then part exchanging it a few months later for the Special Edition (I will review it one day, I swear), as well as buying the non-anamorphic Bad Boys two days before the anamorphic collectors edition was released. Fortunately I got my money back on that one.

Ooh, found the receipt. 7.10. 2000 was the day my DVD world was hatched.

Actually I still have some pre-recorded tapes. I just haven't gotten round to upgrading my TOS, DS9 and VOY collection, especially the latter two which look just like VHS anyway, regardless of format. I doubt I'll find Captain Caveman on DVD, and I just can't be asked to go rebuy the Higlander sequels or those films I sort of don't hate enough to throw away, but don't like enough to spend any more money on.

I also have some anime which has never seen the light of DVD in the UK. Stuff like Junk Boy and Genocyber, as well as Angel Cop.

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 12-1-2009 22:11

I got into DVDs before I even bought a DVD player, watching them on my laptop (a laptop with a DVD drive in '98 - how advanced was that!?) - receiving Armageddon and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels for my birthday in '99. Those were the days when flippers were acceptable and turning the disc over halfway through the film didn't seem like a big deal - they often, if not always, came in jewel cases that cracked and broke very easily. I spent £350 on my first DVD player which came with Lost in Space, Much Ado About Nothing and The Mask - I sold the first two - and the player broke after 13 months.

I didn't think anything of spending £19.99 for a disc back then and though I was getting a bargain in WHSmiths when it was buy one get one half price when I bought The Opposite of Sex (still the best film that a member of the Friends crew has made)and Psycho.

I don't have any VHS, nor do I own a VCR - I remember replacing many of my VHS tapes with DVDs in the months after buying the player and giving them to charity. Luckily I haven't been so hasty with the DVD to Blu-ray conversion and have only replaced about half a dozen, mostly because they have brand new cuts (like Dark City) or just fantastic AV quality (like the Pixar discs and A Nightmare Before Christmas).

ChangesPosted by Si Wooldridge on 12-1-2009 23:43

Don't remember being an early early adopter but came to it relatively early compared to the majority of the wider public I guess - was probably as long ago as 2000 I suppose. Had that great budget player (bought second hand for £100) that refused to play The Matrix, so replaced that with my first Sony DVD player which has now been superceded by another and will almost certainly be upgraded to a Sony BD player if I ever get the urge to upgrade again.

I know that Chris G is a massive BD fan but I can't just yet see the justification of upgrading for a picture quality that doesn't seem as big a leap as DVD over BD. I know those who already have it will point out the flaws in my arguement but I'm not convinced due to both equipment and disc pricing, not to mention that the BD's seem to have skimped on the extras on most of the big releases - I think of those reviewed so far on Standard Operating Procedure actually has more extras than the DVD release.

I'm more than happy with DVD picture quality and the format itself, so it may be a while before I jump in myself.

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 13-1-2009 10:20

There are plenty of BDs which have more extra material than the DVD, as the format allows interactive content and vastly more storage capability. The Pixar and Disney discs have something called 'CineExplore', so you can watch the film with a commentary and loads of picture in picture, storyboards, photographs and see the people behind the microphones, for example. The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration, for illustration, is another huge improvement over DVD, plus there are hours of exclusive HD extra features.

If you're happy with DVD then you haven't seen it side by side with a High-definition disc - I thought the recent DVD release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut looked outstanding until I flicked between that and the HD DVD and was amazed at how bad the DVD looked in comparison!

Add to that uncompressed 5.1 and even 7.1 sound at massively higher bitrates and it is an upgrade not to be dismissed out of hand. I can understand you not being an early adopter and waiting for the price to come down, but once you get into it you won't look back.

ChangesPosted by Jitendar Canth on 13-1-2009 11:54

I just realised that I had a DVD player since 1996, or at least a DVD-ROM in my PC, which amounts to the same thing. I never once played a DVD in it until I bought the Sony. And I remember now that the first disc I killed was The Matrix (DVDs were nowhere near as robust as the sales pitch made out), when I wanted to see what the DVD ROM extras were all about, and I scratched the edge of the disc on my PC case.

The DVD ROM was the one reason that I initially didn't want to upgrade from VHS to DVD, as watching a DVD played back on those early software players, on PC monitors with dodgy refresh rates in PC storefronts, just made the picture look horrible.

ChangesPosted by Brian Elliott on 27-1-2009 12:55

Great discussion!

I got my first DVD player in 2001, an LG 4710 for £150. It didn't play anything but regular DVDs (no CDs of any kind, no home-burned DVDs), but I was easily able to make it multiregion thanks to DVD Reviewer!

I haven't made the move to Blu-Ray yet and can't see me doing so for a while. I've only just picked up an HD TV, and I find regular DVDs perfectly acceptable at the moment.

I still have some VHS tapes around the house - mostly old wrestling stuff that you can't buy anymore. I'd love to convert it to DVD but don't fancy spending £30 on a Macrovision cable.

ChangesPosted by David Simpson on 29-6-2009 16:22

Do DVDs on your PC count. I got my first proper one in 2000 and my first DVD bought was The Exorcist.
Funny how you remember silly things like that.

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