Is the DVD dead?

The digital video disc or DVD for short is a means for getting entertainment to the consumer. Whether it’s a movie or TV series or recording of a live production, or as long as its digital content and can fit on the disc.

The versatility of the medium, means you can design it to look and do what you want, but in terms of the presentation of entertainment there are certain conventions that are followed. The first thing they have in common is a main menu, which lists all the content available like play from beginning, scene selection and special features. TV show DVD’s also have episode selections. They all also have a window on the side playing clips from the movie or show with audio playing, as to show a trailer preview. And they all start the same, with legal copy warnings and the same anti-piracy video, followed by trailers that never change. Although blu rays now update them.

 

The functions on a DVD such as the buttons let you access the media and are generally laid out in a list to make them easy to find and navigate. The animations make the transition flow and thus improve o the user experience as they mask all the information on the screen loading in.

 

And even now with online entertainment getting bigger and better, the DVD seems to be holding its own.  This can be thanks to quite a number of contributing factors like all the extra features that aren’t available while streaming. And even when buying a movie off a virtual store you may not get the trailers, but it is still the barebones version without even a menu. The other reason people still prefer them is that DVD’s are yours to own once bought, just being available for an uncertain amount of time on Netflix, or locked to a certain media player. And even though it is illegal to copy or distribute them, you can still borrow or lend them out to friends. Also some shows like the Simpsons will never come to streaming, so if you’re paying to own it might as well all the special features.

 

Now DVD’s are outdated in some ways, firstly by not having a convenient option window pop up to watch the next episode, so as soon as the credits roll you have to back out and manually select the next episode. Set up time also comes into play, it takes a lot longer to get your DVD, take it out of the case, put it in a player and wait for it to boot up, than just simply clicking a link or file. And they are not entirely permanent as they can get scratched or damaged quite easily to the point of it becoming unwatchable.