DVD Demystified

The Future of DVD
The Far Horizon
567
In the very long term, the Internet will merge with cable TV, broadcast TV,
radio, telephones, satellites, and eventually even newspapers and magazines.
In other words, the Internet will take over the communications world.
News, movies, music, advertising, education, games, financial transactions,
e-mail, and most other forms of information will be delivered via this giant
network. Internet bandwidth, currently lagging far behind the load being
demanded of it, will eventually catch up, as did other systems such as intercontinental
telephone networks and communications satellites. Discrete
media such as DVD will then be relegated to niches such as software backups,
archiving, time-shift “taping,” and collector’s editions of movies. Why go
to a software store to buy a DVD-ROM or to a movie rental store to rent a
DVD when you can have it delivered right to your computer or your TV or
even your digital video recorder? In the intervening years, however, DVD in
all its permutations and generations promises to be the definitive medium
for both computers and home entertainment.