| NJ5 said:
Going from VHS to DVD was great due to discs being better than tapes in so many ways, plus the extra features which DVDs have... Going from DVD to Blu-Ray is just a waste of money as far as I'm concerned. If I had a PS3, maybe I would use it, but as it stands there's no justification for me to waste money on it. |
Never having to see this fucking sticker again was certainly one of them. Other than never needing to be rewound, just being able to skip from anywhere in the movie with a few presses of a button was also a gigantic step forward. Got a favorite scene you’d want to rewatch? Just go to scene select and click it. With a tape, you’d have to press stop , then fast-forward, wait a while, hit play, see if you’re near where you’re at, then back up/go further to where you need to be and hit play.
On DVD you can also set repeat markers and loop your certain scene to play endlessly, great for enjoying the best part of your favorite porno, or watching Samuel L. Jackson repeatedly get eaten by a shark during his big speech in Deep Blue Sea. Can’t do that on VHS without constantly mashing rewind and fast-forward.
DVD’s also could have numerous bonus features since it’s not a continues reel of tape. Deleted Scenes, Behind the Scenes, Commentaries, Games, Alternate Endings. Even the simple optional subtitles in different languages is a nice thing to have.
All that rewinding and fast-forwarding also tends to wear out video tapes and even wreck them over enough viewings. DVD’s, provided they’re handled with care, don’t seem to wear out from ordinary use.
DVD players in general seem more reliable as well. Less moving parts in both the player and media mean less things to go wrong. And as long you had your DVD player hooked up right, it should be fine, where as Tape decks you might have mess with the tracking depending on the tape.
DVD’s also occupied less space than VHS. That sounds trivial, but for us with limited shelf space it’s a great benefit. Also meant more shelf space in the retail market. And for people collecting series of movies or every episode in a TV series, it’s becomes a huge space saver. Case in point.
vs. 
Because they took up less space, the players also were smaller, allowing them to be built into computers and video game consoles, giving you even more places to play them, sometimes with less techno junk taking up space under you’re TV.
DVD’s also had more storage space. Trumping the general two hour limit most VHS tapes had when it came to high quality video. Which mean longer movies or smaller mini-series could fit on a single disc as opposed to two tapes.
And DVD’s and DVD players eventually became CHEAPER than VHS. If they didn’t already have a huge enough set of advantages, they also became the more affordable format. It was a long time from DVD’s inception, but it did happen. It being alot cheaper on the manufacturing end also lowered the risk enough for where almost every obscure movie and TV show could be brought to a home video.
Other than price, which eventually became moot, there were only two major disadvantages to DVD from my perspective.
One, you couldn’t record off them like VHS. Which was annoying for a long time, but now the proliferation of DVR recorders and video download and streaming services (both legal and illegal) have pretty much made that moot from the viewing perspective. DV tapes and the lot are the formats from the personal recording end of the spectrum though.
Two, easily scratched. But we all learned to just be careful and pick them up by the edge. =P
