DVD Demystified

DVD on Computers
many audio card manufacturers include multichannel features and digital
audio output for Dolby Digital and DTS. Companies that specialize in simulating
multispeaker surround sound from two computer speakers are
jumping on the DVD bandwagon and ensuring that their systems work
with Dolby Digital audio tracks. Operating systems developers such as
Microsoft and Apple have also built support for MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital
into their core multimedia layers.
Multimedia: Out of the
Frying Pan . . .
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Although the primary use of CD-ROM is for applications and business data,
the most high-profile use of CD-ROM has been for multimedia, which is
computer software that combines text, graphics, audio, motion video, and
more. To battle-weary multimedia CD-ROM developers, DVD either seems
like a breath of fresh air or more of the same old been there, done that. Multimedia
CD-ROM products are expensive and difficult to produce. A huge
disparity of computer capabilities exists among customers as well as a frustrating
inconsistency of support for audio and video playback, especially on
the popular Windows platform. Hundreds of multimedia CD-ROM titles are
produced each year, but only a handful of them make money, in part
because customers have been burned too many times by CD-ROMs that
don’t work on their computers.
On one hand, DVD-ROM is a new area for multimedia development
without the stigma of CD-ROM and with the cachet of digital movies and
surround-sound capabilities. Given the lessons learned from CD-ROM,
DVD-ROM could be an opportunity to finally get it right: an ubiquitously
easy-to-use, high-performance multimedia format. On the other hand,
DVD-ROM has inherited many of the problems of CD-ROM on top of its
own new set of problems.
Microsoft and Intel have created standard platforms and application
programming interfaces (APIs) for DVD on PCs, but original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs) and third-party decoder developers only half-heartedly
support them. Organizations such as the Interactive Multimedia Association,
the Software Publishers Association, and the OpenDVD
Consortium promoted guidelines and standards in the early days of DVD,
but each of these groups has disappeared. The DVD Association has assembled
work groups to produce recommended practices in hopes of ensuring