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10 Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About DVD<br />
• Do I care about black-level adjustment?<br />
• Do I value special deals? If so, look for free DVD coupons and rentals<br />
available with many players.<br />
For more information, read hardware reviews at Web sites such as DVD-<br />
File or in magazines such as Widescreen Review. You may also want to read<br />
about user experiences at Audio Review and in online forums at Home Theater<br />
Forum and DVDFile. More advice can be found at DVDBuyingGuide<br />
and at eCoustics.com, which also has a list of links to reviews on other sites.<br />
See <strong>Chapter</strong> 3’s “What Are the Outputs of a DVD Player?” and “How Do<br />
I Hook up a DVD Player?” and for specific information on which audio/<br />
video connections are needed for your existing setup.<br />
Which DVD Titles Are Available?<br />
In the video distribution industry, a title refers to a movie or other production<br />
release, such as Snow White, Star Wars, or a boxed edition of a TV series<br />
like Babylon 5 First Season. Titles are collectively referred to as software,<br />
not to be confused with computer software.<br />
DVDs started off slowly. In 1996, rosy predictions of hundreds of movie<br />
titles being sold for Christmas failed to materialize. Only a handful of DVD<br />
titles, mostly music videos, were available in Japan for the November 1996<br />
launch of DVDs. The first feature films on DVD appeared in Japan in<br />
December, including The Assassin, Blade Runner, Eraser, and The Fugitive<br />
from Warner Home Video. By April, over 150 titles were available in Japan.<br />
The first titles released in the United States on March 19, 1997, by Lumivision,<br />
authored by AIX Entertainment, were IMAX adaptations: Africa: The<br />
Serengeti, Antarctica: An Adventure of a Different Nature, Tropical Rainforest,<br />
and Animation Greats. (Other movies such as Batman and Space<br />
Jam had been demonstrated earlier but were not full versions available for<br />
sale.) The Warner Brothers U.S. launch followed on March 24 but was limited<br />
to seven cities. Almost 19,000 discs were purchased in the first two<br />
weeks of the U.S. launch, more than expected. InfoTech predicted over 600<br />
titles by the end of 1997 and more than 8,000 titles by 2000.<br />
By December of 1997, over 1 million individual DVD discs had been<br />
shipped, representing about 530 titles. By the end of 1999, over 100 million<br />
discs had shipped, representing about 5,000 titles. A year later, over 10,000<br />
titles were available in the United States and over 15,000 were on the market<br />
worldwide. By the end of 2001, about 14,000 titles were available in the<br />
United States. In December of 2002, about 23,000 titles were available in<br />
the United States. Compared to other launches (such as CDs and LDs), a<br />
huge number of titles had been released in a very short time. (Note that this
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