Week 6 - Response to Content

When was the DVD invented?

It all started in 1994 when Sony and Philips that they would cooperate in developing a new high-density medium known as Digital Video Disk (DVD). This new inventure was to be the successor to the compact disks (CD-ROM) for computers, and replace VHS tapes in the entertainment industry. In the start of year 2005 in Beverly Hills, Time Warner and Toshiba held a press conference to announce their version of the DVD. This set off the debate of the DVD and the fight of developing the best product. When comparing the two DVD versions, there were found two technical differences between the DVDs. Toshiba was double-sided with a capacity of 10 gigabytes. They also used thinner disks than Sony. This made the Toshiba disk bigger and better than Sony's DVD. During the spring of 1995, the conflict between the two developers had been fueled by Toshiba’s own development of a two-layer disc called SD (Super Density). Sony and Philips were then tightly grid locked in competition (Chapin 1999).

The first DVD players and discs were available in Japan in November 1996, in the United States in 1997, 1998 in Europe and in 1999 in Australia. By 2003 DVD sales and rentals topped those of VHS (History of DVD 2010).

(Source: http://rhetoriccamel.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html)

References:
- Chapin, R 1999, History of DVD, viewed 29 September 2011 at http://www.miqrogroove.com/writing/history-of-dvd/
- History of DVD 2010, viewed 29 September 2011 at http://didyouknow.org/dvdhistory/