99-517: DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs . DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia , North America , Europe , and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-ray Disc; both receive competition as delivery methods by streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+ . Discs using the DVD-Video specification require
198-448: A bit depth of 8 bits per color, encoded as YCbCr with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling . The following formats are allowed for H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 video: The following formats are allowed for MPEG-1 video: The MPEG-1 Part 2 format does not support interlaced video. The H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 format supports both interlaced and progressive-scan content, and can handle different frame rates from the ones mentioned above by using pulldown . This
297-559: A DVD drive and an MPEG-2 decoder (e.g., a DVD player, or a computer DVD drive with a software DVD player). Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats (often multi-channel formats as described below). Typically, the data rate for DVD movies ranges from 3 to 9.5 Mbit/s , and the bit rate is usually adaptive. DVD-Video was first available in Japan on November 1, 1996 (with major releases beginning December 20, 1996), followed by
396-553: A DVD movie can be Dolby Digital (AC-3), DTS , PCM , or MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2) format. In countries using the PAL system standard DVD-Video releases must contain at least one audio track using the PCM, MP2, or AC-3 format, and all standard PAL players must support all three of these formats. A similar standard exists in countries using the NTSC system, though with no requirement mandating
495-485: A DVD player, a figure that had surpassed VCRs; it was also higher than personal computers or cable television. The DVD specifications created and updated by the DVD Forum are published as so-called DVD Books (e.g. DVD-ROM Book, DVD-Audio Book, DVD-Video Book, DVD-R Book, DVD-RW Book, DVD-RAM Book, DVD-AR (Audio Recording) Book, DVD-VR (Video Recording) Book, etc.). DVD discs are made up of two discs; normally one
594-559: A DVD-Video disc in the VOB container format ( V ideo Ob ject). VOB is based on the MPEG program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams. The MPEG program stream has provisions for non-standard data (as AC-3 , DTS , LPCM or subtitles used in VOB files) in the form of so-called private streams. VOB files are a very strict subset of
693-815: A NIST/ LoC research project conducted in 2005–2007 using accelerated life testing , "There were fifteen DVD products tested, including five DVD-R, five DVD+R, two DVD-RW and three DVD+RW types. There were ninety samples tested for each product. ... Overall, seven of the products tested had estimated life expectancies in ambient conditions of more than 45 years. Four products had estimated life expectancies of 30–45 years in ambient storage conditions. Two products had an estimated life expectancy of 15–30 years and two products had estimated life expectancies of less than 15 years when stored in ambient conditions." The life expectancies for 95% survival estimated in this project by type of product are tabulated below: Buffer underrun In computing , buffer underrun or buffer underflow
792-449: A November 1997 online interview, and clarified it would release discs in early 1998. However, this date would be pushed back several times before finally releasing their first titles at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show . In 2001, blank DVD recordable discs cost the equivalent of $ 27.34 US dollars in 2022. Movie and home entertainment distributors adopted the DVD format to replace
891-415: A buffer underrun can be considered a form of resource starvation . The term as defined above is distinct from buffer overflow , a condition where a portion of memory forms a buffer of a fixed size yet is filled with more than that amount of data, thus overwriting memory locations outside of the allocated chunk. However, buffer underrun and underflow are also sometimes used to mean buffer underwrite , where
990-440: A computer. Extra features require additional storage space, which often means encoding the main title with lower than possible data rate to fit both the main title and the extras on one disc. Lower data rate may decrease visual and sound quality, which manifests itself in various compression artifacts . To maintain quality the main title and the extras may be released on several discs, or the extras may be omitted completely like in
1089-634: A computer. DVD players are a particular type of devices that do not require a computer to work, and can read DVD-Video and DVD-Audio discs. Read and write speeds for the first DVD drives and players were 1,385 kB /s (1,353 KiB /s); this speed is usually called "1×". More recent models, at 18× or 20×, have 18 or 20 times that speed. For CD drives, 1× means 153.6 kB/s (150 KiB/s), about one-ninth as swift. DVDs can spin at much higher speeds than CDs – DVDs can spin at up to 32000 RPM vs 23000 for CDs. In practice, they are not spun by optical drives anywhere close to these speeds to provide
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#17327908302171188-491: A cost: DVD±DLs have slower write speeds as compared to DVD±R. DVD-R DL was developed for the DVD Forum by Pioneer Corporation ; DVD+R DL was developed for the DVD+RW Alliance by Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MKM) and Philips . Recordable DVD discs supporting dual-layer technology are backward-compatible with some hardware developed before the recordable medium. DVD drives are devices that can read DVD discs on
1287-445: A disc to be copied to hard disk unscrambled. Some DeCSS applications also remove Macrovision , region codes , and disabled user operations (UOPs). After DeCSS ripping software became available, companies developed techniques to introduce errors in DVD-Video discs that do not normally affect playback and navigation of a disc, but can cause problems in software that attempts to copy the entire disc. These approaches, which are not part of
1386-495: A double-sided disc. Philips and Sony decided that it was in their best interests to end the format war, and on September 15, 1995 agreed to unify with companies backing the Super Density Disc to release a single format, with technologies from both. After other compromises between MMCD and SD, the group of computer companies won the day, and a single format was agreed upon. The computer companies also collaborated with
1485-773: A dual-layer DVD up to 8.5 GB. Variants can store up to a maximum of 17.08 GB. Prerecorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD. Such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs ( DVD-R and DVD+R ) can be recorded once using a DVD recorder and then function as a DVD-ROM. Rewritable DVDs ( DVD-RW , DVD+RW , and DVD-RAM ) can be recorded and erased many times. DVDs are used in DVD-Video consumer digital video format and less commonly in DVD-Audio consumer digital audio format, as well as for authoring DVD discs written in
1584-458: A huge choice of discs. Contrary to popular belief, this practice is not illegal and in some countries that strongly support free trade it is encouraged. A normal DVD player can only play region-coded discs designated for the player's own particular region. However, a code-free or region-free DVD player is capable of playing DVDs from any of the six regions around the world. The CSS license prohibits manufacturing of DVD players that are not set to
1683-400: A large buffer size also increases the latency between input and output, which is undesirable in low-latency applications such as video conferencing. Buffer underruns can cause serious problems during CD/DVD burning , because once the writing is started, it cannot stop and resume flawlessly; thus the pause needed by the underrun can cause the data on the disc to become invalid. Since the buffer
1782-422: A logical format for DVD-Video compliant recording on optical discs and is commonly used on DVD+R/RW media. DVD-Video may also include up to 32 subtitle or subpicture tracks. Subtitles are usually offered as a visual aid for deaf and hearing impaired viewers, for displaying translated dialogue into other languages, or for displaying karaoke lyrics. They are sometimes used to present additional information about
1881-474: A max bitrate of 8 Mbit/s per angle to compensate for additional seek time. This limit is not cumulative, so each additional angle can still have up to 8 Mbit/s of bitrate available. Professionally encoded videos average a bitrate of 4–5 Mbit/s with a maximum of 7–8 Mbit/s in high-action scenes. Encoding at less than the max bitrate (like this) is typically done to allow greater compatibility among players, and to help prevent buffer underruns in
1980-485: A noticeable pause in A/V playback on earlier DVD players , the length of which varies between hardware. A printed message explaining that the layer-transition pause was not a malfunction became standard on DVD keep cases . During mastering, a studio could make the transition less obvious by timing it to occur just before a camera angle change or other abrupt shift, an early example being the DVD release of Toy Story . Later in
2079-518: A player must only play discs that contain its region code. In theory, this allows the motion picture studios to control the various aspects of a release (including content, date and price) on a region-by-region basis, or ensure the success of "staggered" or delayed cinema releases from country to country. For example, the British movie 28 Days Later was released on DVD in Europe several months prior to
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#17327908302172178-454: A potentially significant pause before the reading process begins—and that it will always remain full unless the connection is currently blocked. If the data does not, on average, arrive faster than it is needed, any blockages on the connection will be cumulative; "dropping" one bit every minute on a hypothetical connection with a 60-bit buffer would lead to a buffer underrun if the connection remained active for an hour. In real-time applications,
2277-479: A press release stating that they would only accept a single format. The group voted to boycott both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner , president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions. In one significant compromise, the MMCD and SD groups agreed to adopt proposal SD 9, which specified that both layers of the dual-layered disc be read from
2376-455: A program is tricked into writing data into memory locations before the beginning of the buffer, overriding potential data there such as permission bits . Buffer underruns are often the result of transitory issues involving the connection which is being buffered: either a connection between two processes, with others competing for CPU time, or a physical link, with devices competing for bandwidth . The simplest guard against such problems
2475-415: A raw bitrate of 11.08 Mbit/s, with a 1.0 Mbit/s overhead, leaving a payload bitrate of 10.08 Mbit/s. Of this, up to 3.36 Mbit/s can be used for subtitles, a maximum of 10.08 Mbit/s can be split amongst audio and video, and a maximum of 9.80 Mbit/s can be used for video alone. In the case of multiple angles the data is stored interleaved, and so there is a bitrate penalty leading to
2574-775: A release on March 26, 1997, in the United States—to line up with the 69th Academy Awards that same day. The DVD-Video specification was created by DVD Forum and can be obtained from DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation for a fee of $ 5,000. The specification is not publicly available and every subscriber must sign a non-disclosure agreement . Certain information in the DVD Book is proprietary and confidential. To record digital video, DVD-Video uses either H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 compression at up to 9.8 Mbit/s (9,800 kbit/s ) or MPEG-1 Part 2 compression at up to 1.856 Mbit/s (1,856 kbit/s). DVD-Video supports video with
2673-718: A result of a moderately flexible programming interface, DVD players can be used to play games, such as the DVD re-release of Dragon's Lair , along with more sophisticated and advanced games such as Scene It? , all of which can be run on standard DVD players. Modern DVD recorders often support additional disc and file formats, including DVD+/-R/RW, CD-R/RW, MP3 , WMA , SVCD , JPEG , PNG , SVG , KAR and MPEG-4 ( DivX / Xvid ). Some also include USB ports or flash memory readers. Player prices range from as low as US$ 20 ( £ 10) to as high as US$ 2,700 (£1,350). DVD drives for computers usually come with one of two kinds of Regional Playback Control (RPC), either RPC-1 or RPC-2. This
2772-449: A safety margin. DVD drives limit reading speed to 16× (constant angular velocity), which means 9280 rotations per minute. Early-generation drives released before the mid-2000s have lower limits. DVD recordable and rewritable discs can be read and written using either constant angular velocity (CAV), constant linear velocity (CLV), Partial constant angular velocity (P-CAV) or Zoned Constant Linear Velocity (Z-CLV or ZCLV). Due to
2871-540: A single region by default. While the same license prohibits manufacturers from including prominent interfaces to change the region setting it does not clearly prevent them from including "hidden" menus that enable the player's region to be changed; as such, many high-end models in the U.S. include password-protected or otherwise hidden methods to enable multi-region playback. Conversely in the UK and Ireland many cheap DVD players are multi-region while more expensive systems, including
2970-420: A special AVCHD format to hold high definition material (often in conjunction with AVCHD format camcorders ). DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The Oxford English Dictionary comments that, "In 1995, rival manufacturers of the product initially named digital video disc agreed that, in order to emphasize the flexibility of the format for multimedia applications,
3069-555: A standard definition CRT TV or an HD flat panel TV with a DVD mechanism under the CRT or on the back of the flat panel, and VCR/DVD combos were also available for purchase. For consumers, DVD soon replaced VHS as the favored choice for home movie releases. In 2001, DVD players outsold VCRs for the first time in the United States. At that time, one in four American households owned a DVD player. By 2007, about 80% of Americans owned
DVD-Video - Misplaced Pages Continue
3168-432: A storage capacity of 4.7 GB (4.38 GiB ) for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB (7.92 GiB) for a dual-layered, single-sided disc. The DVD specification ended up similar to Toshiba and Matsushita's Super Density Disc, except for the dual-layer option. MMCD was single-sided and optionally dual-layer, whereas SD was two half-thickness, single-layer discs which were pressed separately and then glued together to form
3267-507: A successful effort has been made to write a decoder by reverse engineering , resulting in DeCSS . This has led to long-running legal battles and the arrest of some of those involved in creating or distributing the DeCSS code, through the use of the controversial U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), on the grounds that such software could also be used to facilitate unauthorized copying of
3366-447: A television set with a decoder. DVD-Video may contain chapters for easy navigation, and continuation of a partially watched film. If space permits, it is also possible to include several versions of certain scenes, called "angles". Today, the multi-angle feature is mostly used for internationalization. For example, it can be used to supply different language versions of images containing written text when subtitles would not do (e. g.,
3465-451: A work, but CSS does restrict the playback software that may be used. CSS has caused major problems for the inclusion of DVD players in any open source operating systems, since open source player implementations are not officially given access to the decryption keys or license to the patents involved in CSS. Proprietary software players were also difficult to find on some platforms. However,
3564-443: A worldwide perspective regional coding may be seen as a failure. A huge percentage of players outside of North America can be easily modified (and are even sold pre-modified by e-commerce websites) to ignore the regional codes on a disc. This, coupled with the fact that almost all televisions in Europe and Australasia are capable of displaying NTSC video (at the very least, in black and white), means that consumers in these regions have
3663-641: Is 99 and the maximum titles allowed per DVD is 99. Almost all DVD-Video discs use the UDF bridge format, which is a combination of the DVD MicroUDF (a subset of UDF 1.02) and ISO 9660 file systems. The UDF bridge format provides backwards compatibility for operating systems that support only ISO 9660. Most DVD players read the UDF filesystem from a DVD-Video disc and ignore the ISO9660 filesystem. A DVD volume for
3762-527: Is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan . The medium can store any kind of digital data and has been widely used to store video programs (watched using DVD players ), software and other computer files. DVDs offer significantly higher storage capacity than compact discs (CD) while having the same dimensions. A standard single-layer DVD can store up to 4.7 GB of data,
3861-486: Is a state occurring when a buffer used for communicating between two devices or processes is fed with data at a lower speed than the data is being read from it. This requires the program reading from the buffer to pause its processing while the buffer refills. Having to deal with such situations can cause undesired and sometimes serious side effects because the data being buffered is often not suited for stop-start access of this kind. In terms of concurrent programming ,
3960-419: Is available in two formats, General (650 nm) and Authoring (635 nm), where Authoring discs may be recorded with CSS encrypted video content but General discs may not. Dual-layer recording (occasionally called double-layer recording) allows DVD-R and DVD+R discs to store nearly double the data of a single-layer disc—8.5 and 4.7 gigabyte capacities, respectively. The additional capacity comes at
4059-462: Is blank, and the other contains data. Each disc is 0.6 mm thick, and are glued together to form a DVD disc. The gluing process must be done carefully to make the disc as flat as possible to avoid both birefringence and "disc tilt", which is when the disc is not perfectly flat, preventing it from being read. Some specifications for mechanical, physical and optical characteristics of DVD optical discs can be downloaded as freely available standards from
DVD-Video - Misplaced Pages Continue
4158-430: Is compatible with the DVD standard. Some hardware players will also play DVD-ROMs or CD-ROMs containing "raw" MPEG video files; these are "unauthored" and lack the file and header structure that defines DVD-Video. Standard DVD-Video files contain extra information (such as the number of video tracks, chapters and links to extra features) that DVD players use to navigate the disc. The maximum chapters allowed per title
4257-469: Is generally being filled from a relatively slow source, such as a hard disk or another CD/DVD, a heavy CPU or memory load from other concurrent tasks can easily exhaust the capacity of a small buffer. Therefore, a technique called buffer underrun protection was implemented by various individual CD/DVD writer vendors, under various trademarks , such as Plextor BurnProof, Nero UltraBuffer, Yamaha SafeBurn, JustLink, and Seamless Link. With this technique,
4356-450: Is lost. Numerous factors affect longevity: composition and quality of the media (recording and substrate layers), humidity and light storage conditions, the quality of the initial recording (which is sometimes a matter of mutual compatibility of media and recorder), etc. According to NIST , "[a] temperature of 64.4 °F (18 °C) and 40% RH [Relative Humidity] would be considered suitable for long-term storage. A lower temperature and RH
4455-444: Is measureable, which means that future data losses caused by deteriorating media can be predicted well in advance by measuring the rate of correctable data errors. Support of measuring the disc quality varies among optical drive vendors and models. DVD-Video is a standard for distributing video/audio content on DVD media. The format went on sale in Japan on November 1, 1996, in the United States on March 24, 1997, to line up with
4554-409: Is most commonly used to encode 23.976 frame/s content for playback at 29.97 frame/s. Pulldown can be implemented directly while the disc is mastered, by actually encoding the data on the disc at 29.97 frames/s; however, this practice is uncommon for most commercial film releases, which provide content optimized for display on progressive-scan television sets. Alternatively, the content can be encoded on
4653-411: Is rare on a DVD. The official allowed formats for the audio tracks on a DVD-Video are: DVDs can contain more than one channel of audio to go together with the video content, supporting a maximum of eight simultaneous audio tracks per video. This is most commonly used for different audio formats—DTS 5.1, AC-3 2.0 etc.—as well as for commentary and audio tracks in different languages. DVD-Video discs have
4752-583: Is recommended for extended-term storage." As with CDs, the information and data storage will begin to degrade over time with most standard DVDs lasting up to 30 years depending on the type of environment they are stored and whether they are full with data. According to the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA), "Manufacturers claim lifespans ranging from 30 to 100 years for DVD, DVD-R and DVD+R discs and up to 30 years for DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM." According to
4851-524: Is reserved, and region 8, which is used exclusively for passenger transport such as airlines and cruise ships. A virtual machine implemented by the DVD player runs bytecode contained on the DVD. This is used to control playback and display special effects on the menus. The instruction set is called the Virtual Machine (VM) DVD command set. There are 16 general parameter registers (GPRM) to hold temporary values and 24 system parameters (SPRM). As
4950-483: Is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forum 's mission statement, which the purpose is to promote broad acceptance of DVD products on technology, across entertainment, and other industries. Because DVDs became highly popular for the distribution of movies in the 2000s, the term DVD became popularly used in English as a noun to describe specifically a full-length movie released on
5049-417: Is to increase the size of the buffer—if an incoming data stream needs to be read at 1 bit per second, a buffer of 10 bits would allow the connection to be blocked for up to 10 seconds before failing, whereas one of 60 bits would allow a blockage of up to a minute. However, this requires more memory to be available to the process or device, which can be expensive. It assumes that the buffer starts full—requiring
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#17327908302175148-638: Is used to enforce the publisher's restrictions on what regions of the world the DVD can be played. (See Regional lockout and DVD region codes .) While open-source software DVD players allow everything, commercial ones (both standalone models and software players) come further encumbered with restrictions forbidding the viewer from skipping (or in some cases fast-forwarding) certain content such as copyright warnings or advertisements. (See User operation prohibition .) When DVD drives first became commercially available in 1997, they often came with special encoder/decoder cards, which were designed to pass through either
5247-620: The MPEG program stream standard. While all VOB files are MPEG program streams, not all MPEG program streams comply with the definition for a VOB file. DVD recorders can use DVD-VR or DVD+VR format instead of DVD-Video. DVD-VR format store multiplexed audiovisual content in VRO containers. VRO file is an equivalent to a collection of DVD-Video VOB files. Fragmented VRO files are not widely supported by hardware or software players and video editing software. DVD+VR standard defines
5346-452: The 69th Academy Awards that day; in Canada, Central America, and Indonesia later in 1997; and in Europe, Australia, and Africa in 1998. DVD-Video became the dominant form of home video distribution in Japan when it first went on sale on November 1, 1996, but it shared the market for home video distribution in the United States for several years; it was June 15, 2003, when weekly DVD-Video in
5445-562: The ISO website. There are also equivalent European Computer Manufacturers Association (Ecma) standards for some of these specifications, such as Ecma-267 for DVD-ROMs. Also, the DVD+RW Alliance publishes competing recordable DVD specifications such as DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD+RW or DVD+RW DL . These DVD formats are also ISO standards. Some DVD specifications (e.g. for DVD-Video) are not publicly available and can be obtained only from
5544-612: The Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) on the use of their implementation of the ISO-13346 file system (known as Universal Disk Format ) for use on the new DVDs. The format's details were finalized on December 8, 1995. In November 1995, Samsung announced it would start mass-producing DVDs by September 1996. The format launched on November 1, 1996, in Japan, mostly with music video releases. The first major releases from Warner Home Video arrived on December 20, 1996, with four titles being available. The format's release in
5643-686: The Queen 's spell book in Snow White , and the scrolling text in the openings of the Star Wars films). Multiple angles have found a niche in markets such as yoga , erotica , animation (e. g. for storyboards ), and live performances. A significant selling point of DVD-Video is that the storage capacity allows for a wide variety of extra, or bonus, features in addition to the feature film. These extra features can include Extra features often provide entertainment or add depth and understanding to
5742-521: The format war of 2006–2008 . A dual layer HD DVD can store up to 30 GB and a dual layer Blu-ray disc can hold up to 50 GB. However, unlike previous format changes, e.g., vinyl to Compact Disc or VHS videotape to DVD, initially there was no immediate indication that production of the standard DVD will gradually wind down, as at the beginning of the 2010s they still dominated, with around 75% of video sales and approximately one billion DVD player sales worldwide as of April 2011. In fact, experts claimed that
5841-408: The framebuffer of the graphics controller is not updated, the picture of the computer screen will appear to hang until the buffer receives new data. Many video player programs (e.g. MPlayer ) feature the ability to drop frames if the system is overloaded, intentionally allowing a buffer underrun to keep up the tempo. The buffer in an audio controller is a ring buffer . If an underrun occurs and
5940-425: The " Superbit " line of DVDs. DVD-Video has four complementary systems designed to restrict the DVD user in various ways: Macrovision , Content Scramble System (CSS), region codes , and disabled user operations (UOPs). There are also anti-ripping techniques intended to foil ripping software . Many DVD-Video titles use Content Scramble System (CSS) encryption, which is intended to discourage people from copying
6039-409: The DVD Book assigns them distinct disc types. DVD-14 has no analogous 8 cm type. The comparative data for 8 cm discs is provided further down. HP initially developed recordable DVD media from the need to store data for backup and transport. DVD recordables are now also used for consumer audio and video recording. Three formats were developed: DVD-R / RW , DVD+R / RW (plus), and DVD-RAM . DVD-R
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#17327908302176138-671: The DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation (DVD FLLC) for a fee of US$ 5000. Every subscriber must sign a non-disclosure agreement as certain information on the DVD Books is proprietary and confidential. Borrowing from the LaserDisc format, the DVD standard includes DVD-10 discs (Type B in ISO) with two recorded data layers such that only one layer is accessible from either side of the disc. This doubles
6237-500: The DVD would remain the dominant medium for at least another five years as Blu-ray technology was still in its introductory phase, write and read speeds being poor and necessary hardware being expensive and not readily available. Consumers initially were also slow to adopt Blu-ray due to the cost. By 2009, 85% of stores were selling Blu-ray Discs. A high-definition television and appropriate connection cables are also required to take advantage of Blu-ray disc. Some analysts suggested that
6336-557: The DVD-Video format has the following structure of directories and files: IFO files store control and playback information – e. g. information about chapters, subtitles and audio tracks. They do not store any video or audio data or subtitles. BUP files are only backups of the IFO files. Data structures recorded on a DVD-compliant disc are components of one of the four data groups called domains: Video, audio, subtitle and navigation streams are multiplexed and stored on
6435-462: The U.S. was delayed multiple times, from August 1996, to October 1996, November 1996, before finally settling on early 1997. Players began to be produced domestically that winter, with March 24, 1997, as the U.S. launch date of the format proper in seven test markets. Approximately 32 titles were available on launch day, mainly from the Warner Bros. , MGM , and New Line libraries, with
6534-456: The United States rentals began outnumbering weekly VHS cassette rentals. DVD-Video is still the dominant form of home video distribution worldwide except for in Japan where it was surpassed by Blu-ray Disc when Blu-ray first went on sale in Japan on March 31, 2006. The purpose of CSS is twofold: In 2006, two new formats called HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc were released as the successor to DVD. HD DVD competed unsuccessfully with Blu-ray Disc in
6633-459: The audio controller is not stopped, it will either keep repeating the sound contained in the buffer, or output silence depending on the implementation. Such effect is commonly referred to as "machinegun" or Max Headroom stuttering effect. This happens if the operating system hangs during audio playback. An error handling routine (e.g. blue screen of death ) may eventually stop the audio controller. Intentionally imitating this audio glitch during
6732-473: The beginning of a disc). However, grey market players ignore UOPs and some DVD "re-authoring" software packages allow the user to produce a copy without these restrictions. The legality of these activities varies by jurisdiction and is the subject of debate. (See fair use .) Each DVD-Video disc contains one or more region codes, denoting the area(s) of the world in which distribution and playback are intended. The commercial DVD player specification dictates that
6831-559: The biggest obstacle to replacing DVD was due to its installed base; a large majority of consumers were satisfied with DVDs. DVDs started to face competition from video on demand services around 2015. With increasing numbers of homes having high speed Internet connections, many people had the option to either rent or buy video from an online service, and view it by streaming it directly from that service's servers, meaning they no longer need any form of permanent storage media for video at all. By 2017, digital streaming services had overtaken
6930-466: The case of dirty or scratched discs. In October 2001, aiming to improve picture quality over standard editions, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment offered " Superbit "—a premium line of DVD-Video titles having average bitrates closer to 6 Mbit/s. Audio quality was also improved by the mandatory inclusion of both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround audio tracks. Multiple languages, angles, and extra audio tracks were eliminated to free up more space for
7029-512: The data on the discs. The Videolan team, however, went on to make the libdvdcss library. Unlike DeCSS, libdvdcss can access a CSS-encrypted DVD without the need of a cracked key, thus enabling playback of such discs on opensource players without legal restraints (although DVD rippers using this library may still be subject to restrictions). The DMCA currently affects only the United States , however many other countries are signatories to
7128-481: The developers of the DVD format and eventually the first company to actually release a DVD-based console. Game consoles such as the PlayStation 2 , Xbox , and Xbox 360 use DVDs as their source medium for games and other software. Contemporary games for Windows were also distributed on DVD. Early DVDs were mastered using DLT tape, but using DVD-R DL or +R DL eventually became common. TV DVD combos , combining
7227-575: The disc itself at one of several alternative frame rates, and use flags that identify scanning type, field order and field repeating pattern. Such flags can be added in video stream by the H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 encoder. A DVD player uses these flags to convert progressive content into interlaced video in real time during playback, producing a signal suitable for interlaced TV sets. These flags also allow reproducing progressive content at their original, non-interlaced format when used with compatible DVD players and progressive-scan television sets. The audio data on
7326-438: The disc to specify whether or not the user may perform any operation, such as selecting a menu, skipping chapters, forwarding or rewinding – essentially any function on the remote control. This is known as User Operation Prohibitions, or Prohibited User Operations (UOPs or PUOs). Most DVD players respect these commands (e. g., by preventing skipping or fast-forwarding through a copyright message or an advertisement at
7425-468: The disc. Usually, users need to install software provided on the DVD or downloaded from the Internet such as MPlayer , TotalMedia Theatre , PowerDVD , VLC or WinDVD to be able to view the disc in a computer system. CSS does not make it difficult (any more) to copy the digital content now that a decoder ( DeCSS ) has been released, nor is it possible to distinguish between legal and illegal copies of
7524-554: The film's release in North American movie theaters. Regional coding kept the European DVD unplayable for most North American consumers, thereby ensuring that ticket sales would be relatively unaffected. In practice, many DVD players allow playback of any disc, or can be modified to do so. Entirely independent of encryption, region coding pertains to regional lockout , which originated in the video game industry. From
7623-575: The film. Games, bloopers , and galleries provide entertainment. Deleted scenes and alternative endings allow the audience to view additional content which was not included in a theatrical release. Directors cuts allow the audience to see how the director envisioned the main title without the constraints which are placed on a theatrical release. Other extras that can be included on DVDs are motion menus, still pictures, up to 32 selectable subtitles, seamless branching for multiple storylines, up to 9 camera angles, and DVD-ROM / data files that can be accessed on
7722-892: The format's life, larger data buffers and faster optical pickups in DVD players made layer transitions effectively invisible regardless of mastering. Dual-layer DVDs are recorded using Opposite Track Path (OTP). The DVD Book also permits an additional disc type called DVD-14: a hybrid double-sided disc with one dual-layer side, one single-layer side, and a total nominal capacity of 12.3 GB. DVD-14 has no counterpart in ISO. Both of these additional disc types are extremely rare due to their complicated and expensive manufacturing. For this reason, some DVDs that were initially issued as double-sided discs were later pressed as two-disc sets. Note : The above sections regarding disc types pertain to 12 cm discs. The same disc types exist for 8 cm discs: ISO standards still regard these discs as Types A–D, while
7821-442: The format; for example the sentence to "watch a DVD" describes watching a movie on DVD. Released in 1987, CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm (4.7 in) size of audio CDs. Video CD (VCD) became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc storage formats were being developed. One
7920-459: The ground up. By the beginning of the 2020s, sales of DVD had dropped 86% with respect to the peak of DVD sales around 2005, while on-demand sales and, overall, subscription streaming of TV shows and movies grew by over 1,200%. At its peak, DVD sales represented almost two thirds of video market in the US; approximately 15 years later, around 2020, they fell to only 10% of the market. By 2022, there
8019-415: The integrated video on the computer motherboard or the video card . The cards were necessary since most computers did not have sufficient processing power to handle the decoding on the discs. As CPU speeds and video card memory drastically increased in the late 1990s, in addition to software alternatives such as PowerDVD becoming readily available, the decoder cards quickly became obsolete; however, before
8118-674: The introduction of GPU video encoding technology (such as Intel Quick Sync Video ), a proprietary MPEG2 / MPEG4 encoder card may be used. Video game systems with DVD-Video playback functionality include: Panasonic Q (a variation of the GameCube sold exclusively in Japan), PlayStation 2 , PlayStation 3 , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Wii (with an unsupported hack), Xbox (additional remote required), Xbox 360 , Xbox One , and Xbox Series X . DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc )
8217-447: The laser is indeed able to stop writing for any amount of time and resume when the buffer is full again. The gap between successive writes is extremely small. Another way to protect against the problem, when using rewritable media ( CD-RW , DVD-RW , DVD-RAM ), is to use the UDF file system, which organizes data in smaller " packets ", referenced by a single, updated address table, which can therefore be written in shorter bursts. If
8316-481: The main title and thereby to ensure the highest data rate possible. In January 2007 the Superbit line was discontinued. Some DVD hardware or software players may play discs whose MPEG files do not conform to the above standards; commonly this is used to support discs authored with formats such as VCD and SVCD . While VCD and CVD video is supported by the DVD standard, neither SVCD video nor VCD, CVD, or SVCD audio
8415-484: The majority of home cinema systems, are preset to play only region 2 discs. In China, DVDs for television series are usually released in MPEG-1 video, with MP2 audio. By forgoing Dolby standards, manufacturers cut costs considerably; encoding in lower bit-rates also allows a TV series to be squeezed onto fewer discs. There is no region coding in such cases. There are also two additional region codes, region 7, which
8514-428: The notable inclusion of the 1996 film Twister . However, the launch was planned for the following day (March 25), leading to a distribution change with retailers and studios to prevent similar violations of breaking the street date . The nationwide rollout for the format happened on August 22, 1997. DTS announced in late 1997 that they would be coming onto the format. The sound system company revealed details in
8613-455: The official DVD-Video specification, include Sony ARccOS Protection , Macrovision RipGuard , X-protect, ProtectDisc SecureBurn, Anaho, Fortium, and others. All of these methods have been circumvented (as might have been expected, since all standard DVD players naturally circumvent them to play and navigate the discs normally). Riplock is a feature that reduces drive noise during playback but inadvertently reduces ripping speed. DVD-Video allows
8712-451: The original film recordings. Shows that were made between the early 1980s and the early 2000s were generally shot on film, then transferred to video tape, and then edited natively in either NTSC or PAL; this makes high-definition transfers impossible, as these SD standards were baked into the final cuts of the episodes. Star Trek: The Next Generation was the only such show that had a Blu-ray release, as prints were re-scanned and edited from
8811-399: The preferred abbreviation DVD would be understood to denote digital versatile disc." The OED also states that in 1995, "The companies said the official name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name 'digital video disc', but that was switched to 'digital versatile disc' after computer companies complained that it left out their applications." "Digital versatile disc"
8910-412: The sales of DVDs and Blu-rays for the first time. Until the end of the 2010s, manufacturers continued to release standard DVD titles as of 2020 , and the format remained the preferred one for the release of older television programs and films. Shows that were shot and edited entirely on film, such as Star Trek: The Original Series , could not be released in high definition without being re-scanned from
9009-414: The same side—instead of proposal SD 10, which would have created a two-sided disc that users would have to turn over. Philips/Sony strongly insisted on the source code, EFMPlus , that Kees Schouhamer Immink had designed for the MMCD, because it makes it possible to apply the existing CD servo technology. Its drawback was a loss from 5 to 4.7 Gbyte of capacity. As a result, the DVD specification provided
9108-550: The similar WIPO Treaty . In some countries it is not illegal to use de-scrambling software to bypass the DVD restrictions. A number of software programs have since appeared on the Web to view DVDs on a number of different platforms. Other measures such as anti-ripping, as well as U.S. and non-U.S. copyright law, may be used to prevent making unauthorized copies of DVDs. CSS decrypting software, or ripping software, such as DVD Decrypter , AnyDVD , MacTheRipper , and DVD Shrink allows
9207-663: The slightly lower data density of dual layer DVDs (4.25 GB instead of 4.7 GB per layer), the required rotation speed is around 10% faster for the same data rate, which means that the same angular speed rating equals a 10% higher physical angular rotation speed. For that reason, the increase of reading speeds of dual layer media has stagnated at 12× ( constant angular velocity ) for half-height optical drives released since around 2005, and slim type optical drives are only able to record dual layer media at 6× (constant angular velocity), while reading speeds of 8× are still supported by such. The quality and data integrity of optical media
9306-416: The total nominal capacity of a DVD-10 disc to 9.4 GB (8.75 GiB), but each side is locked to 4.7 GB. Like DVD-5 discs, DVD-10 discs are defined as single-layer (SL) discs. DVD hardware accesses the additional layer (layer 1) by refocusing the laser through an otherwise normally-placed, semitransparent first layer (layer 0). This laser refocus—and the subsequent time needed to reacquire laser tracking—can cause
9405-430: The ubiquitous VHS tape as the primary consumer video distribution format. Immediately following the formal adoption of a unified standard for DVD, two of the four leading video game console companies ( Sega and The 3DO Company ) said they already had plans to design a gaming console with DVDs as the source medium. Sony stated at the time that they had no plans to use DVD in their gaming systems, despite being one of
9504-495: The use of or support for the MP2 format. DTS audio is optional for all players, as DTS was not part of the initial draft standard and was added later; thus, many early players are unable to play DTS audio tracks. Only PCM and DTS support 96 kHz sampling rate. Because PCM, being uncompressed, requires a lot of bandwidth and DTS is not universally supported by players, AC-3 is the most common digital audio format for DVDs, and 96 kHz
9603-485: The video being played. Subtitles are stored as bitmap images and therefore can contain any arbitrary text or simple image. They are restricted to a 16-color palette, but are usually implemented with a limit of 4 colors. 16 levels of transparency are also supported to allow blending, but this is also not always implemented. The subtitle tracks are contained within the VOB file of the DVD. DVD-Video may also contain closed captioning material which can only be viewed on
9702-413: Was an increased demand of high definition media, where Ultra HD Blu-ray and regular Blu-ray formats made up for almost half of the US market while sales of physical media continued to shrink in favor of streaming services. Longevity of a storage medium is measured by how long the data remains readable, assuming compatible devices exist that can read it: that is, how long the disc can be stored until data
9801-872: Was the Multimedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony (developers of the CD and CD-i ), and the other was the Super Density (SD) disc, supported by Toshiba , Time Warner , Matsushita Electric , Hitachi , Mitsubishi Electric , Pioneer , Thomson , and JVC . By the time of the press launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc (DVD). On May 3, 1995, an ad hoc , industry technical group formed from five computer companies (IBM, Apple, Compaq , Hewlett-Packard , and Microsoft) issued
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