What's so great about DVD?

[CromNogger]

The only thing I ever hear in answer to this is "better video and audio quality" and "more stuff". What's the point, dammit?!

I rented a PS2 this week, and two games along with The Matrix. The games were Midnight Club Street Racing and Emotion Type-S or something... Midnight Club Street Racing was pretty cool.

But the quality of the video itself, I thought, was only a step above the regular Playstation, I was really unsurprised.

As for DVD.. WHAT is so great about it? Looks like a regular movie to me.. And the sound was a little better, but I guess you'd need a REALLY good sound setup to notice the difference.. The speakers used were like 3 feet tall, and pretty good quality.. The sound was nice, but it didn't blow me away.

Isn't DVD supposed to really look a lot better? Should you hook it up to a large computer screen instead of a TV or something? I don't get it ...

 

[fluxxcapacitor]

your t.v. sux.

DVD has a noteable quality difference. yes, if you want to see it, try a computer monitor.

 

[geno]

<< I guess you'd need a REALLY good sound setup to notice the difference >>


LOL - nope - even decent TVs look much better than on VHS. Even my 19 inch Samsung made DVDs look 10 times better than what my VCR can put out. But for the people who don't see or care about the quality - I can see why you'd wanna stick with VHS or not care about DVD

 

[Boogak]

People expecting to just stick a DVD player in place of their VCR on their 25&quot; TV will be sorely disappointed. The beauty of DVD doesn't really shine until you get yourself a good big screen TV and most importantly a good 5.1 speaker setup.

 

[CromNogger]

Yep, and every TV I have seen &quot;sux&quot;. TVs SUCK. Or should I spend thousands on a TV so I can see the difference with DVD? If I ever actually get a DVD I'm going to get it for my computer though, so I will be able to see if the quality really is good.

 

[CromNogger]

Boogak - yeah exactly what I was thinking ...

I don't get how you can notice such a big difference on a mediocre TV setup.. Maybe all your VCRs are suck If you buy a new tape, and you have any decent VHS player, what's the problem with the quality? I've seen so many movies and many looked really good, just as good as the DVD did when I played it in my rented PS2. The TV was at my friends house, it looked to be ~32&quot;.. It was Toshiba I think .. - a good TV - I expected to see something better.

 

[snow patrol]

It probably helps if you have a flat screen widescreen television, and a good quality DVD player with some surround speakers. I haven't seen the playback of a PS2 myself, but it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't match up to that of the upper range Pioneer or Sony models. It took me about a month to choose a DVD player, and I finally, after much deliberation, picked a Pioneer 626D, which has superb picture and an onboard DTS decoder which apparently (according to reviews), is on a par with stand-alone decoders which cost over $1000.

DVD is FAR superior to VHS in just about every way I can think of. The picture and sound is better, and won't deteriorate with repeated views like VHS can sometimes do. You also have the very handy option of being able to skip to certain chapters, rather than having to fast forward and hope that you've reached the right point.

And the features, particularly with films from certain companies, are often more interesting than the film itself. Things like deleted scenes, director?s commentary and making of documentaries can often give a fascinating insight into the making and directing of the film.

I would go on, but my dinner is burning so I must go and eat it!

Long live DVD!

 

[prodigy]

For me personally I like DVD's better because I like to watch movies in widescreen. I know you can get widescreen VHS movies too, but they don't seem as common.

 

[StageLeft]

MOST TV's kinda suck, and most tvs will not make great use of a DVD player. Even many high end ones won't - monitors truly are a great way to see them. Of course a monitor is normally fairly small.

That said I have a reasonably decent 25&quot; TV and I can certainly tell the image quality difference between VHS/cable and my PS2. My father has an old 28&quot; with digital cable and it is smoother than regular...

As long as your TV isn't really low-end you'll get a benefit from DVD in image quality...and when we all have HDTVs that difference will be astounding!

snow patrol A PS2 does not match up to an upper range DVD player, its on a lower/mid range, but its still pretty good and, for the normal person's home entertainment setup, its plenty adequate. A $500 DVD player is kind of wasted on a $400 TV

trippy Midnight club is pretty good - Driving emotion type S is BY FAR the crappiest game I've ever played on the PS2. I rented it and was sick after about 8 minutes. Terrible terrible game. God awful.

 

[randomlinh]

widescreen kicks butt.. now to get a tv to match it... but i have dvd on my comp, dorms too small for a 50&quot; widescreen

The thing about dvd i like is it's on a disc. My family doensn't have that collection of movies, but they rent quite often. And well, the tapes can be crappy qual and what not. Granted, dvd's can get scratched, but unless its REAL bad, usually it won't have much of an effect.

Plus, no rewind and little things like that make it cool It's just a matter of knocking down the price of those DVD's to something a bit more reasonable now.

 

[CromNogger]

Hehe... Yeah Midnight Club is kinda funny with those ghetto &quot;homey&quot; dudes..

Unfortunately we didn't have time to kick some arse and get good cars, but it was fun.. I love driving around in the city like that, makes for more interesting and realistic gameplay.

Emotion type S seemed physically realistic, like when you see the replay, it looked like a real car driving, but it was horrible to play..

 

[dennilfloss]

A friend of mine uses his Konica DVD player with a 20yo 21&quot; TV with dials :Q and horrible colour convergence. He prefers it simply because he does not speak English and says he can change the audio to French.

The Sound Of Silence (Simon &amp; Garfunkel)

 

[prodigy]

Dials on a TV, what in the world are those?

 

[vi edit]

As others have said, with a decent TV, the picture difference is night and day between a DVD and VHS.

On top of that, the sound is much crisper and seperated with a 5.1 setup over the plain old Dolby Pro Logic of VHS.

Then throw in the little things like no need to rewind, instant access to scenes, added extras, and multiple versions on one disk and you have a pretty nice combo

 

[Delusion2001]

better quality and extra features

watch it on the comp and you will see the difference (if you have a good monitor and graphics card that is)

 

[ultravox]

How does a stand alone DVD player sold for home audio compare to say a pioneer 16x for a PC?

 

[kami]

1. You're using a PS2 to play DVDs
2. Your TV must suck if you can't see a difference
and 3. You are using the puny 2 watt speakers built into your TV, aren't you?

 

[John]

Ultravox, the Pioneer DVD player doesn't decode, software or a hardware decoder does. A Hollywood+ comes close to a nice set top DVD player.

 

[snow patrol]

<< How does a stand alone DVD player sold for home audio compare to say a pioneer 16x for a PC? >>


Ultravox - I myself have a Pioneer 16X DVD ROM, and before I got my Pioneer 626D DVD player, I was watching my movies on my 19&quot; sony trinitron with PowerDVD.

Then I got a 28&quot; widescreen TV and the DVD player, and the difference is pretty damn big. Overall, things are much sharper...richer colors and less blurring or pixilation. Once I got into DVD's bigtime and started mounting a collection, I just knew that watching them on my computer was not the way I should be doing things.

Kami - I'm on the lookout for some good surround speakers to make use of my onboard DTS decoder. Any recommendations in say the $400 range perhaps? Thanks

 

[Silver_VR6]

Trippy,

to really appreciate DVD, you have to have a decent-sized TV to go with it.

I useds to have a 27 inch Gaoo TV with my DVD player, and it was good but not great.

But then I bought a relatively small Rear projection TV. A Toshiba TW40X81. It's a widescreen format TV (16:9)


Man ohhh Man!!! The image on this TV set is incredible. And the sound, through a good 5.1 system, is shocking.
Seems I am hearing things I never heard before!

So DVD, paired with a good HT setup, is just fantastic.

Fran&ccedil;oisToshiba 16:9 TV

 

When you have a 35&quot; sony wega and a 7 piece paradigm sound package, you will appreciate DVD.

 

[Imported]

My Wega XBR looks great accompanied with a DVD player. VHS is so blah, looks like crap. For the XBR's, what you put in is what you get out. If you have a crappy signal, you are going to notice it.

 

[konichiwa]

The playback on a PS2 is awful compared to a REAL dvd player. As for why I like DVD...can you say anamorphic widescreen?

 

[iamwiz82]

i have a top of the line Phillips 27&quot; TV and there is a HUGE difference between VHS and DVD. It all depends on the quality of the system you are using it on.

 

[MikeO]

First time when I saw DVD movie was at my friends place. He had comp with dvd drive hooked to a very normal 20~24&quot; cheap TV and oh my god. If someone cant see the difference, he has to be blind.

And what's the point? Uh.. well if you like movies AT ALL, only the sharp image should be enough. But also the format; smaller &amp; easier to store, doesnt wear out, you cant destroy it that easily, no crappy slow rewinding, the extra-stuff they put on them, the great language options... there's TONS of &quot;points&quot;. For a movie freak like myself, DVD is just as good as it can get.