About DVDs - The Future

The DVD industry has grown far faster than that of the CD industry. Today, 17 Gigabytes of data is the maximum which DVDs can hold. It should not be too long before data DVD capacities grow even further. Along with the ability to store information comes the ability to achieve even more than could be imagined.

The random access ability, combined with the huge data capacity that DVD offers, would enable a totally interactive experience for users, by enabling them to select the path which a film should take. For example, at different stages of a film, the user could make a selection as to what the lead character should do. Many different situations will have to be filmed to acheive this task. At the moment, maybe only half hour films could utilise this. However, in future years when more data can be stored on a DVD, full-length motion pictures will be attepmting to give viewers the chance to be the 'directors', choosing which path a film should take.

It has been said that in the early years of the 21st century, VHS will be fased-out of existence and DVD-Video will take over as the major medium for entertainment storage, not just for television, but for audio and computer as well.

They already have DVD writing available to the public, though it is a little expensive. Pioneer's DVR-A04 drive writes and reads DVD-RW, DVD-R, CD-R and CD-RW media, and also reads CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs. The drive offers up to 4.7GB of storage capacity on a single sided DVD disc. Pioneer's DVR-A04 also provides wider compatibility, higher speeds, lower noise, UDMA33 support and buffer under-run protection for both CD and DVD recording.

Maybe this is just the tip of the iceburg and the real power of DVD will surprise us all. We'll have to wait and see...