Cast Away is on Amazon.com's list of top 20 best-selling DVDs this week. So are O Brother Where Art Thou?, Unbreakable, Forrest Gump and Hannibal. Remarkably, not one of those titles has been released.

        Fans of digital video discs are so eager to get their hands on hot new releases they sign up to buy them sometimes months before the DVD shipping dates. Forrest Gump and Hannibal, for instance,won't hit the market until August.

        DVDs swooped into the home entertainment universe so fast it is easy to forget they have been around only four years.

        When DVD players went on sale in North American in the spring of 1997, sales ran around 35,000 a month. Now, consumers routinely buy as many as 1.3 million players every month. The consumer Electronics Association counts 18 million DVD players in the United States and Canada. An estimated 10,000 movie titles are available now on DVD (not counting porn), and dozens more arrive monthly.

        Technophiles and new-toy addicts were quick to embrace the format that boasts crisp, clear pictures and bright stero sound, as well as interviews, featurettes, alternative endings and other bells and whistles.

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        Since DVD player prices fell below $200 last year, this sophisticated technology is quickly changing from a tech-head's gizmo to a home entertainment must-have.

        For those who have not yet made the switch, we offer some plain-English answers to frequently asked questions about movies on DVDs.

        Question: Does this mean I have to throw away my video tapes?

        Answer: Not likely. There are more than 90 million videocassette recorders in the United States; more than 90 percent of households have at least one. Worldwide, more than 400 million VCRs are in use.

        Q: What's the difference between DVD and regular video tapes?

        A: Video tapes are magnetic; sound and pictures are encoded, basically, as teeny tiny squiggly lines. DVDs are digital; sound and pictures are translated into computer-style ones and zeros and recorded in microscope pits in the surface of the disc. Just like with a music CD, a laser reads the pits and turns them back into the code that forms the sound and pictures.

        Q: What's the big deal about DVDs?

        A: When properly made, they look and sound much better than videotapes because so much more detail — information — can be crammed onto the disc.

        Q: Like a real movie?

        A: No. Film holds far more detail than a disc could handle. To put a whole movie on disc, it is necessary to delete enormous amounts of digitized information in tiny increments. That's called compression. Theoretically you never notice, though aficionados can spot bad compression work.

        Q: OK, good pictures, good sound. What else?

        A: Movie companies now make it a practice to add special goodies to a DVD to make it more entertaining. Contents may include interviews with stars and directors, short “making-of” documentaries, complete scripts, footage that was cut out of the theatrical release, alternate endings, some buried in “Easter eggs.”

        Q: Easter eggs?

        A: It's a term borrowed from the computer world, where it refers to some undocumented software feature, like a game or cartoon. On DVDs, the hidden extras could be anything.

        Q: Such as?

        A: The Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan included a 90-second horror film he made as a boy; Mallrats director Kevin Smith tucked in a speech about not wasting time looking for Easter eggs. Terminator 2 has several hidden treats; so does The Matrix. Many more are listed on the “Hidden Feature” page of the DVD Review Web site www.dvdreview.com.

        Q: I use my VCR to record TV shows when I'm not home. Can I do that with a DVD player?

        A: Sort of. You can subscribe to a service such as Tivo, or buy a free-standing units such as Panasonic's Showstopper, but they store shows on their own hard drives, not on your blank DVD. Also, the quality of the recording is not always first-rate. Manufacturers are working on DVD recorders for the home, but they face complex technical issues, including coming up with bullet-proof anti-piracy coding.

        Q: What about the DVD recorder on my new computer?

        A: That was designed to record data, not sound and pictures.

        Q: Can I swap DVDs with my cousin in London?

        A: Maybe, maybe not. DVDs carry codes that allow them to play only on machines manufactured for use in particular parts of the world; North America and Europe are in different zones.

        Q: Why would they do that?

        A: To “protect the window.” That means American film companies want to stop stateside DVDs from showing up overseas before the movies have opened in theaters around the world. Europeans often install gadgets in their DVD players to defeat regional coding; North American players are tougher to hack. Machines capable of playing DVDs from multiple zones can be had, for a price.

        Q: How much do DVD players cost?

        A: Not much, if you're looking for basic equipment. Prices for home units dropped below $200 late last year, sparking a huge surge in sales. High-quality, multi-disc players that let you, for instance, zoom in on scenes of your choosing, can be had for less than $300.

        Q: What about the movies?

        A: They can be rented at the same places that rent videos (including libraries). You usually can buy new titles on DVD for between $15 and $30.

        Q: The price to buy a just-released video can run around $100. Are DVDs that much cheaper to make?

        A: DVDs do cost less than tapes to manufacture, but not that much. The high price of tapes is a meant to encourage rentals. But when DVDs arrived, the movie studios decided to price them for sale right away.

        Q: How long will a DVD last last?

        A: Treated properly — that is, protected from grit, grease and extremes of temperature and humidity — a disc should be good for decades.

        Q: Won't it wear out?

        A: Theoretically, no. Its information is decoded by a laser; there is no physical contact to wear out the disc's surface.

        Q: What's next? And will it make DVDs obsolete?

        A: Movies delivered in real time over high-speed networks; high-definition discs and players; perhaps even in-home digital projection systems for wall-sized images.

        The possibilities are enormous, but it is unlikely that the new innovations will make DVDs disappear completely in the near future. Despite CDs, music cassette tapes are still not extinct. Machines capable of playing 78 rpm records still exist.

        We've even heard there are some folks who still play eight-tracks.

        E-mail mmcgurk@enquirer.com.
       

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