DVD vs. VCR: As time changes, so do advances in technological devices. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of popular entertainment wherehome videos are found in nearly every Americans home. The fact that manypeople own home videos isnt as intriguing as the type of equipment that isbeing used to view these videos. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-* Copyright DueNow. com Inc.
*Category:TechnologyPaper Title:DVD vs. VCRText:As time changes, so do advances in technological devices. Nowhere is thismore apparent than in the area of popular entertainment where home videos arefound in nearly every Americans home. The fact that many people own homevideos isnt as intriguing as the type of equipment that is being used to viewthese videos. At one time video cassette recorders were commonplace in homesacross the U. S.
, but nowadays, a trend towards a new device is making headway;digital video disk players. The videos these two devices play may be the same,but there are also stark differences between the two. The first television sets hit households in the U. S. in the late 1930s andby the 1970s the first videocassette recorders, more commonly referred to asVCRs, hit the market. Marshall Brains website Howstuffworks.
com states;When people think about the history of television, there are a handful ofevents that stand out as extremely important. The VCR marks one of the mostimportant events in the history of television because, for the first time, itgave people control of what they could watch on their TVs. This is acomment that is widely accepted by a wide variety of people worldwide. BeforeVCRs, consumers had to watch what the broadcast stations decided to put on thescreen but with VCRs, these same people could now buy, and record their favoriteshows and view them whenever they wish.
VCRs work by storing video informationon a plastic cassette filled with an 800-foot roll of oxide-coated Mylar tape. The VCR reads this tape and projects its information onto a television where theuser views it. Putting information onto videocassettes is easy enough thatnearly all-new VCRs are capable of doing so. VCR prices can be found below $100 and videocassette prices hover around tendollars at many large retailers across the Midwest. A major reason for this isthat VCRs have been available for years and competition to make cheaper VCRshave driven down the prices.
Also, new advances in technology have led to newdevices again driving down the prices. The storage space that VCRs consume ismoderate when compared to other types of multimedia, but the videocassettes takeup more room because of their composition. Operating a VCR is a common routine in middle class America mostly becausethey have been around for so long. Manufactures have been coming up with new,interesting features to keep users coming back. Some of these include,automatically skipping commercials, programming a VCR to record in conjunctionwith a TV guide, and allowing a VCR to start and stop recording at particularpreset times. Nearly every major retailer carries videocassettes from exercise videos togreat American classics like Gone With the Wind and Casablanca.
VCRs are oftencommon at places like Best Buy, Circuit City, Target and countless other stores. The availability of VCRs and videocassettes is better today than it ever hasbeen. In the future, VCR and videocassette prices will continue to drop asmanufacturers keep devising new ideas to appeal to their customer base. Bybecoming commonplace in homes across the United States, VCRs have a strongholdon the market but with new technologies hitting the shelves, VCRs forecast forthe future bears a burden. Leading these new technological devices is digital videodisks recorders morecommonly referred to as DVD players.
These players become available to thepublic in the early to middle 90s and have grown in popularity ever since. The major problem with digital versatile disk players is that most people dontknow what they are and why they are superior to their current media players. John Ross book DVD Player Fundamentals claims, DVD or “DigitalVersatile (Video) Disc” is a new audio/video/data format that promises tooffer consumers more quality, flexibility and value than any other previous homeentertainment format. (3).
Simply put, DVD surpasses any type of home videoplayers on the market. With DVD players, consumers can still buy and watch their favorite showsrepeatedly but with distinct advantages. For example, many current DVD playershave features not available on VCRs because of their digital characteristics. One of these more interesting features is zoom. With this feature, users canpause a video and zoom in on a particular area between four and 12 times.
DVD players work by reading information stored on a disk digitally. The disksthemselves, look identical to conventional compact disks, but store more thandouble the information. Since DVD technology uses digital disks, they can playnot only videos but also audio compact disks. One downfall of this complexdigital media is that manufacturers have not yet found a way to record onto adisk using a conventional DVD player. Experts predict this feature will becomeavailable in the near future.
Prices for DVD players start just above VCRs at $100. Multi-disk DVDplayers can cost as much as $1000 dollars depending on their size and features. The newest type of DVD media to hit the market has been portable DVD/TV devises. These look similar to laptops and contain a television screen, speakers, and aDVD player in one unit. The size of an average DVD player is close to a VCR in width and length, butis slimmer when it comes to height.
The disks themselves take up considerablyless room than VHS cassettes because they are sold in slim cases similar tocompact disks. Operating a DVD player isnt as easy to many people as operating a VCR. This is due to new features such as digital sound control, scan, chapter search(similar to a table of contents in a book) and zoom. As their popularity grows,using them will most likely simplify. Currently, well over half of all video rental stores have DVD disks for rent. This is a sure sign that DVD media is here to stay.
Almost every new computer issold with a DVD drive and all the major motion picture companies are releasingolder VHS cassette tapes on DVD. Will this trend continue to snowball and pickup more and more of the home entertainment market share? Many experts say yes.The hurdle DVD technology must first clear in a path to success is convincingthe public to switch from their trusty VCR to the new, improved advancement inhome entertainment, DVD!-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
