DVD vs. VHS

DVD vs. Video

DVD and Video Compatibility

Video wins hands down. There is really only one video format and that's VHS and just about everyone's got one. The number of households with DVD players is catching up fast, but as mentioned above, there is no one standard for DVD yet. Hand a video to someone and you're almost certain they can watch it. Hand them a DVD and it may work in their player, if they have one.

DVD and Video Picture Quality

DVD wins right? Not necessarily. A one hour video in digital format takes up about 21GB of space on a computer. DVD encoders use compression (mpeg2) to fit this on to the 4.7GB DVD disk and any time you use compression there is some loss of quality. Now in saying that, around the 1 hour 15 min mark is the point where the degradation starts to become noticeable during cross fades, action scenes or low light. A 2 hour high quality video will (initially) look better than a 2 hour DVD.

DVD and Video Durability

DVD wins 2 - 1. Video wins when it comes to physical handling of the two. You have to be very careful handling DVDs as they can be easily scratched and rendered unplayable whereas the tape is kept within the protective cassette while out of the VCR.

DVD's win the durability race when being played. Nothing touches the play surface of a DVD while it's being played so it doesn't wear out no matter how often it's played. On the other hand, the surface of the tape in a video touches rollers and heads of the VCR causing wear every time you play the video.

DVD and Video Longevity

DVD wins, but it's not as long as you think. Video tape degrades continuously and it is reported to last only 25 years before it becomes totally unusable. DVDs are reported to last around 75 years, which is not quite the "forever" that most people think. Luckily they can be duplicated perfectly anytime before they expire, thus avoiding the loss of the footage. So it can sort of last forever. TIP: Go and get your old home movies transferred to DVD before they turn to dust.

DVD and Video Features

Menus, Subtitles, Camera Angles, Surround Sound, Languages, Scene Selection, the list goes on and on. This is the reason DVD has become so popular so quickly, it's not because of the picture quality. DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disc (not Digital Video Disk) and its versatility that's winning the public over.

The different types of DVD.

Many moons ago, there was a little war between Beta and VHS. As we all know, VHS won. With DVDs, it's a little more complex than 2 differing formats. With DVDs, you have glass mastered DVDs (DVD), DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-1, DVD-5, DVD-9 and whatever else they've come up with in the last 10 minutes that I haven't accounted for. The DVD war is not over; it has hardly begun.

DVD Replication and Duplication

Replicated (or glass mastered) DVDs are the DVDs you hire or buy from the video store. They are mass produced using what's called a glass master. It is very expensive to make the glass master, but then very cheap and more reliable to produce the individual DVD. In the days of vinyl records it would be the equivalent of creating 2 metal plates with a raised groove that pressed together with a blob of vinyl in between, produces a record.

Duplicated (or burnt) DVDs start off as blank DVDs and a laser burns holes in them pretty much the same way as CD-R or CD-Recordable are burnt. Sticking with the vinyl analogy, it is the equivalent of scratching the grooves into a blank record. This is a lot cheaper to set up, but there are higher ongoing costs and is not as reliable. Also, the time taken to burn a 1 hour DVD is about 1 hour, despite all the hype regarding 4× (and now 8×) recordable DVDs.

Duplication is used for runs that are less than 1,000 and Replication for commercial or large scale corporate productions in the order of 10's of thousands or above. So unless you are needing a DVD program used for large distribution, or retail purposes, don't plan on having your DVD project replicated.

DVD-R and DVD+R

DVD-R and DVD+R are the two formats of recordable DVD. At the time of writing, DVD-R was the most compatible form of recordable DVD. There is a less than 4% chance that a DVD-R won't work in your set-top DVD player (vs. over 12% for DVD+R). Check your player's manual or contact the manufacturer or check your player's compatibility. The last thing you want is to get your DVD home and not be able to watch it. Generally you can request a particular format based on your specific video software, but some players won't play either format. In that case, the only thing left is to buy yourself a new player that will play recordable DVDs.

Different DVD Authoring

To make matters worse, there are different menu options available depending on the software used to create (or author) the DVD. The basic package consists of no menu, or a menu with just a play button and all you can do is play (or maybe fast forward & rewind). Effectively you have nothing more than a digital VHS!!

Then you have systems that can put (invisible) chapter markers on the track that your DVD player can skip to. Combine this with a picture on the screen that includes the chapter numbers, similar to a table of contents, and you have the same as above with a bit more navigation.

Next up are DVDs with menus that have interactive "buttons". This is more like the DVD's we're used to. You can choose play, or scene selections or any number of other special features just by using your DVD remote or computer mouse.

Top of the range are DVDs that have fully interactive motion menus, that can be found on most rental or retail purchased DVD movies.