What originally got you into DVD....... (1 Viewer)

[James D. Houston]

Three reasons - all of which were of roughly equal importance to me:

Widescreen

Superior Picture quality

The durability of discs over tape

Other factors - extras, chapter stops, no rewinding - were icing on the cake.

Best,

Jim

 

[Carl Johnson]

Divx Back in '97 I worked @ Circuit City for about a year and they were hyping this new format that was going to revolutionize home theater. By the time the format was launched I wasn't working there anymore but I was sure to get a player as soon as I could. Fortunately I happened upon the chatroom @ etown.com(rip) and they educated me as to the benefits of open DVD. I returned my Divx player, ordered a player from 800.com and the rest is history.

 

[Lafe F]

I got into DVD when I discovered that TRON, Halloween II and Halloween III were available in widescreen on a single 5" disc that didn't need to be flipped over. This would've been in late 1998.

 

[Ed Faver]

IN 1997, I was fully committed to LDs, on my 2nd player and really building a home theater for the first time. I was SERIOUSLY invested in the big silver disks and then...Digitainment in Whippany, NJ (a moment of silent for this dearly departed resource) started the demos and, at first, it didn't look too good. A demo disc, showing a portion of Free Willy, looked pixelated and, frankly, fake.

I stayed with LDs even as racks of DVDs began eating up floor space at Digitainment. Then, in the summer of 1998, when Digitainment decided to close their doors, I walked out with a deeply discounted RCA 5500 that the store wanted to move in a hurry. WIthin a few days, I was a convert.

The influx of Internet e-retailers, especially Reel.com was the other key. The software was cheap, cheap, cheap--especially compared to the big silver platters...

I still hold on to my Pioneer 504 and about 70 LDs, but I use it rarely. The Panasonic RP56 that replaced the 5500 gets daily use. DVDs turned out to be what motivated me to put together a real home theater. And to think I didn't want it to succeed. Of course, that's when DIvx was supposed to conquer the market!

 

[Neil Joseph]

I never got into LD's probably because of the price of the disks but the increased fidelity of DVD's coupled with the cheaper price got me sold.

 

[Mike_G]

I got into DVDs because of Laserdisc. Laserdisc was great, but clumsy to handle, had one-hour per side (or half-hour if you HAD to buy widescreen versions like B&TB or Aladdin), and were WAY, WAY, WAY overpriced.

That's pretty much it.

Digitainment in Whippany, NJ (a moment of silent for this dearly departed resource)

Yes, yes, yes. It's now a comic book store (or was the last time I was there). I still work in the area and always wonder what Digitainment would be like today.

I was against DVD at first because of all the negative reviews it got about pixelation, etc. But it was Digitainment's side-by-side of "The Mask" on VHS, LD, and DVD that convinced me. The DVD look noticably better than LD. That was the first time I saw DVD for myself.

Lesson learned - NEVER make a decision on reviews only. See/hear it for yourself.

Mike