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[Muffdraul]

The first DVD I ever saw was The Road Warrior aka Mad Max 2. I don't mean I watched the movie in that format, I mean I was at Tower Records to buy a CD and I saw a shelf full of these weird flat long boxes of Road Warrior and I thought "wtf is that? 'DVD'? wtf is a DVD?!"

The first DVD I ever actually watched was Apocalypse Now on my friend's brand new PS2 and I was so blown away by the quality that was also my first DVD when I finally found my own PS2 in early 2001.

 

[PUNKem733]

Oct 2000 Launch PS2, with Final Destination

 

[MrCunningham]

Something that I miss about DVD's were all of the bonus content that came packaged with them. I guess this was a carry over from laser disc. With commentary tracks, deleted scenes, making of featurettes and stuff like that. Also, the Easter eggs. Like the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged me DVD, if you just let the menu run for about 4-60 seconds, it will unlock a Dr. Evil DVD secret menu. I know Blue-Ray has bonus content too. But it always felt scaled back compared to what DVD offered. I love the DVD format, overall.

 

[MrCunningham]

Did anyone have a LaserDisc player? Much like the Sega Saturn and 3DO, that's one piece of mid-90s tech I never owned and wish I had the chance to experience during its heyday.

Mid 90's? Laser Disc was introduced in the late 1970's, but did hold some relevancy for movie-philes in the mid 1980's to mid 1990's. I think one of the few things that LaserDisc did better than DVD was the ability to index every frame by number and recall them. LaserDisc was great for viewing still frames with relatively clean looking image quality. Laser Disc could contain up to 8-10GB's (50-60 minutes) of data per side. The video quality is much more raw and uncompressed. While a a single layer DVD can hold 4.7GB and a dual layer could hold 8.5GB's of data with codecs that could support audio and video compression. LaserDisc was a 'crisper' video format. But DVD was just far more practical overall.

 

[TheUnicornGuy]

When Blockbusters started closing up, one BB store near my old place promoted buying any DVD you got for $4. I have no idea what they did with them. Maybe they tried flipping them for $10 asap at store or online. I dont know but the store closed up for good not long after. I dumped off some old cruddy DVDs, probably got $50 and bought whatever newer stuff they had.

It was flat rate deal. So if you had a good movie worth more or a piece of junk nobody would ever want they offer $4 for anything.

Game did a similar thing in the uk. They would give you £2.50 trade in value for any dvd against a new game. It was when dvd was really hitting its stride and you could get really shit films for cheap. I went to a charity shop and picked up a bunch of really bad films, like overboard with Adam Sandler, for 50p each. Charity shop was chuffed as they sold a bunch of discs they were stuck with and I was chuffed because I spent £15 and ended up with £75.

 

[Ownage]

I'm surprised the site is still up. It's from when the vast majority of people still actually watched DVDs, lol. Think I saw it on reddit in like 2011.

Know what else is still up?

www.zombo.com

Wtf.

 

[AJUMP23]

Some DVDs had great opening menus/setups. This is the Blu Ray version of Tomb Raider 2001 but the original DVD was the same. Only decent footage I could quickly find. That's all gone with streaming.

No more DVD menu Easter eggs to find hidden clips.

 

[Windle Poons]

Some DVDs had great opening menus/setups. This is the Blu Ray version of Tomb Raider 2001 but the original DVD was the same. Only decent footage I could quickly find. That's all gone with streaming.

It also had an alternative titles bit in the extras on the DVD and I used to love the music for it but alas cannot find it anymore.

 

[No BBC=Anger]

It also had an alternative titles bit in the extras on the DVD and I used to love the music for it but alas cannot find it anymore.

This one?

 

[No BBC=Anger]

No more DVD menu Easter eggs to find hidden clips.

It's the little touches that add up. Technology is great these days but remember old mobile/cell phones that looked radically different from each other? That's the sort of stuff I miss as well.

 

[spookyfish]

First DVD I bought -- before I bought a player -- was TRON. Then Blade. I remember watching the Criterion DVD of Robocop pretty early in the lifecycle at a friend's house.

 

[m14]

I know some people are still passionate collectors, if that's what you like I am not throwing shade - but it seems crazy to think about how everybody, and I mean everybody, had a collection of specific movies in their houses to watch.

Like looking through a bookshelf you could go to someone's house and get a snapshot of their tastes with a glance at the shelves in their living room. You'd expect to see that when you visited, completely normal.

Now, you might even be surprised to see it.

I wonder how many millions of discs there are floating around charity (goodwill) shops and how many are in landfill. When you consider it wouldn't be crazy for any house you visit to have a hundred films on disc, the scale of the waste created must be pure insanity.

It really is. Any just imagine how many unwanted copies there are of any particular year's edition of Fifa / Madden alone? It's no exaggeration to suggest that EA are responsible for an ecological disaster.

 

[Windle Poons]

This one?

Oh Christ yeah. Thank you - legend you are!

 

[BlackTron]

My first run in with DVD was the optical drive that came with a desktop in 1999. My first DVD was 007 Tomorrow Never Dies and I remember using the mouse to skip ahead to the garage chase scene on the beige monitor.

On rare occasion I still play DVDs on a CRT TV, mostly for vibes like TMNT 1.