Happy 7th Birthday, DVD! Remembering those Early Days - Page 3

Tim Hoover · 03-15-2004, 02:38 PM

I bought into DVD in late-spring of '97. I was in Sears getting ready to buy a new lawnmower, and since the model I wanted was a bit out of my pricerange, I applied for a Searscharge. I got approved at a rather high limit, and since I had been ogling DVD for a short while, I thought what the hell, and bought a Toshiba 3006. I then ran down to Suncoast (only place in the area then stocking DVDs) and purchased Blade Runner, Austin Powers 1, and The Fifth Element.

The Tosh player was returned a few months later, upon the release of Starship Troopers. It had some video problems which became very apparent during the ST menu, so it was exchanged for a Sony 3000 model. I kept this player in use for about a year, before stumbling across a Panasonic DVD changer. A changer! Being the lazy guy that I am, I immediately grabbed the Panny C220 and the Sony was relegated to bedroom duty for a few months before it was sold to a coworker.

I actually got quite a bit of use out of the 220 before it started going spazzy. It was replaced last summer by a Panny CP72, and the 220 is now pulling CD duty in my office system...

MikeEckman · 03-15-2004, 03:31 PM

My story of DVD is a bit different. I didnt get my first player until spring of 2000 when the first players were starting to hit the $199.99 price point.

However, my introduction was way before that. I worked at Best Buy from 1995 - Aug 1997, so early in Feb when DVD was about to be announced, we had some marketing people (I dont even remember for what company) come in to give us a training on it.

I worked in the Computer department, so my training was about the advantages of DVD-ROM, but I remember the video presentations where they talked about multiple angles, the potential to have multiple versions of the same movie on a disc. Alot of the features they talked about them turned out to not be very popular as the years went on, but the one thing that was clear to me, was the picture and sound quality.

I never bought into LDs, but I knew they looked and sounded cool, but being a teenager back then, I could never afford one.

Since then, I am on my third player and I have over 430 titles in my collection!

Jesse Skeen · 03-15-2004, 05:54 PM

Well, it's been alive longer than CED! I thought for sure DVD would look like crap and it would fail, and I'd end up picking up players and discs on clearance for my dead format collection. Then I thought it might succeed, but still look like crap and take out laserdisc at the same time, giving that format an even greater setback than it had before. Glad to see I'm not always right! My main player is a LD/DVD combo player though, and will stay that way at least until I can upgrade to SACD/DVD Audio, if HD-DVD doesn't come along first.
BTW I have that first Panasonic demo disc and while it did look like crap in the stores, it looks fine on my system, even the "Twister" clip.

JayHM · 03-15-2004, 08:56 PM

The first movie on DVD I ever saw was Mortal Kombat on store display. I was actually appalled by the compression artifacts (lots of blockiness), and I swore I'd never replace my precious laserdiscs with junk like that.

Not to mention that there weren't any titles available that I wanted. I forgot about DVD for a few years, and it wasn't until Apocalypse Now was released, in glorious 5.1, that I switched over. I sold my laserdisc collection just in time. I remember I got $150 for the Indiana Jones trilogy on eBay! My laserdisc player didn't fare so well, selling for a measely 20 bucks. DVD players had just undergone a major price drop, and nobody was interested in buying an old laserdisc player.

Now it seems laserdisc players are going back up in price, maybe because some purists have become impatient with waiting for their favorite titles to come out on DVD.

Patrick Mirza · 03-16-2004, 06:16 AM

As a devoted laserdisc fanatic, I was dead-set against DVD. Absolutely hated it with every core of my being. But then the Virgin Megastore switched one of its viewing stations (which always ran letterboxed LDs, thank you) to DVD. And that, as they say, was that. I couldn't believe the colors and the black levels... I just stood there slack-jawed. Thanks, Virgin!

Dave H · 03-16-2004, 09:57 AM

In 1999, I was at Media Play buying the newly released, remastered version of Raiders of the Lost Ark on widescreen VHS. They had The Matrix on display playing. However, the player was $500-600. Finally, the day after Christmas of 1999 I went to buy a player and almost every place was sold out. I ended up buying one at Montgomery Wards for $299.00 (Sony).

Devin_C · 03-16-2004, 12:39 PM

I was never into Laserdiscs, and only moderately into VHS (mostly Disney; including buying the widescreens when available). I had first heard of DVDs in an IT context back in the 1994-1995 timeframe; one of the guys I worked with at the time told me about this new optical disc specification that would hold as much as 4 CD-Roms; I recall thinking "whatever would one put on that?" Hard Drives were still being measured in MB back then...

A couple years later I saw a copy of Tomorrow Never Dies at Zellers (think wal-mart, only canadian). This was the orange case, and I thought "slick!". Bought it as an incentive to getting a player. Bought a Toshiba SD-1900(?) at Price Club a few weeks later (I had a friend with a membership sneak me in); paid ~$300, iirc. (A heady price for someone at the income level I was at at the time).

Got it home and to my horror my Sears brand 21" TV didn't have component... or composite, just coaxial. After that purchase, a new TV was not an option. After some 'net research, I learned I had to race off to the Rat - er, Radio Shack and buy some kind of plug-in converter thing that would take the video feed and convert it for my TV. The salesman didn't even know what I was talking about, but I managed to find it. Fed the audio into my 2 speaker crap shelf stereo (KOSS?), which was the only way to get sound.

Get it home, fire it up, and I was still impressed. For some time, I was the only person I knew with a player; and I rented more than I bought (I told myself it was because I was trying to encourage adoption, not because I couldn't afford to collect a lot). I extolled the format to everyone, even as the "status symbol" effect dwindled with increasing adoption. I recall being delighted when Blockbuster indicated they'd devote a third of their stores to DVD, and was bemused by the death of DivX (which didn't seem to make it up to my neck of the woods anyways).

I recall early buys as much for the discs I sent away for (US Marshals, anyone?) as for the purchases themselves (Alien Legacy was my first box set). My first big system upgrade about two years later was a new 27" Toshiba TV - with component. I went out and bought those component cables and nearly fainted at the price (~$80); I had to distract my girlfriend (now my wife) from seeing them getting rung in by telling her to go enter some contest at the store. The picture was fantabulous - blew away my old crappy picture by far.

Bought a home theater in a box setup later that same year. Blown away again; this time by the sound. I tried it out with the DTS Saving Private Ryan. Great stuff. Since then I've expanded to two more DVD players, a Pioneer and one of them newfangled 'progressive' Sony players, and expanded to a 34" widescreen toshiba (should I mention I was blown away by seeing an anamorphic movie on that screen?). Each new tweak/investment has surprised and delighted me. Happy birthday, DVD.

Chris Bardon · 03-16-2004, 03:15 PM

Well, I remember being aware of the DVD launch, and actaully being really anti-DVD for a long time after watching a few on a friend's player in 98. Specifically, his copy of the Usual suspects had some really bad pixellation at the beginning, which put me off DVD for a few years. Around late 1999 though I started to become more and more convinced that I needed a player, if only to get widescreen and special features. I was already buying a bunch of WS VHS (and P&S when I couldn't get WS), mostly through a few Columbia House runs. Held out on the player until June of 2000 though because of the student budget thing, and finally broke down one Tuesday for a couple of reasons. First, Fight Club was being released that day, and second, I could get one of the Apex AD-600A players for $200 CDN. The player got good reviews at the time, and the "loophole" menu sealed the deal. Of course, I ended up getting the version with the corrected firmware, but by that point it was already bought and installed.

Four years and 257 more dvd purchases later, and the Apex is still going strong! Happy birthday DVD!

SteveW · 03-16-2004, 03:38 PM

Wow I can't believe it's been that long already. I was one of those people who took to DVD quick. Before video stores ever thought of renting them. I got my first player, a Sony DVP-S500D, in November of 1997 as part of my first full HT. Alot of people I knew and associated with on the net said I was stupid for it because there was no way DVD would catch on. I had a gut feeling. The only place to get DVDs for a reasonable price was online though. The first batch I bought was from dvdexrpess.com. Got a real good price for being a first-time customer.

Personally I never got into LD just because of the cost factor so I put my money on this new format. I always loved the pq and the sound of LD from my days of selling a/v equipment in the late 80's. I remember the Pioneer LD players we used to sell and loved doing demos with our Top Gun LD. I'm really glad my hunch paid off and DVD caught on. And the future looks even better.

Britton · 03-16-2004, 05:15 PM

I remember first reading about DVD sometime ranging from late 1995 to early 1996 in Electronic Entertainment Monthly back when I was a high school freshmen and immediately thought it was a great idea.

However I didn't get on the DVD wagon until July 1998 when Best Buy was selling the Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM drive bundled with a mpeg2 hardware decoder card for $200. My dad bought The Terminator and T2 while I picked up From Russia With Love. The funniest thing was that I didn't know what the hell the options for English 5.1 or English 2.0 in the T2 audio menu meant. If there were different versions of the english language, someone sure as hell forgot to tell me about it!

oscar_merkx · 03-16-2004, 05:36 PM

the first time I encountered Laserdisc was at a show in the Netherlands called the Firato perhaps 10 years ago when they show T2 Judgement Day in full glory. Stunning but so expensive that I never considered that an option.

Forward to 1999 and the first I heard about DVDS was when George Lucas was interviewed on Channel 4's Breakfast show promoting The Phantom Menace and was asked when would Star Wars be available on dvd, and we all know how long it has taken.

I did not know what dvd was at the time but TF.N was quite vocal about dvds and I found The Digital Bits website which in turn led me to the HTF not long afterwards.

Long time lurker at first and my first dvd was R1's T2 UE before I had my first player. My first player was r2 because a friend sold his and I was buying online dvds from r1 suppliers so I had a problem. I was not able to watch them, so I sold the player and a few months later got my multi region player and have not looked back since