DVD Demystified

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At about this time, the supposedly final 1.0 version of the $5000 DVD-
ROM and DVD-Video technical specifications appeared. The books listed a
publication date of August, but it took a while for them to be shipped. A few
features such as NTSC Closed-Caption support had been changed, and a
complex country-specific ratings system had reverted to a simpler version
from the earlier spec. Copy protection details had been left for a later
appendix, which when it finally appeared only covered the superficial
basics, since the decision had been made to keep copy protection separate
from the technical specifications.
Pioneer announced on September 27 that beginning in the latter half of
October it would sell a mix-and-match system of DVD players and
receivers, bringing its total to five models placed on sale in 1996. European
introduction of the mix-and-match models was planned for spring 1997,
with the United States to follow in the summer.
On October 5, 1996, Samsung announced that November 1 would be the
debut date of its DVD player in Korea and cited predictions of a global market
for DVD players at 400,000 before the end of 1996. The affiliated Samsung
Entertainment Group expected to release at least 10 DVD movie titles
by the end of the year, with more than 100 in 1997 and over 500 in the year
2000. Samsung also expected to commercialize its DVD-ROM drive by the
end of 1996.
Hopes for a DVD-Audio specification before the end of 1996 dwindled.
Philips announced that it would team up with Sony to develop bitstreambased
Direct Stream Digital (DSD) technology for DVD.
The Birth of DVD
Chapter 2
The big news finally arrived on October 29, 1996: the Copy Protection Technical
Working Group announced that a tentative agreement had been
reached. The modified copy protection technology developed by Matsushita
and Toshiba, called Content Scramble System (CSS), would be licensed
through a nonprofit entity. On the same day, Pioneer confessed that it would
delay U.S. shipment of DVD players until January, pushing back the December
release date it had announced just the day before. At this point only
Toshiba and Matsushita were still promising to make DVD hardware available
in December, although most of the press and even more of the public
were confused, thinking release dates in Japan applied to the United States.
Matsushita and Toshiba delivered DVD players in Japan as promised.
News reports from November 1 described a dismal rainy day with lacklus-