Don't let this group die! Question, when did you first see DVD technology?

I once asked people on this group to list their first DVD(s), now I'm
asking when the first time you saw DVD technology in action, and what
you thought.

I first saw Stargate at a Media Play in Kentucky, this was shortly
before DVD was officially scheduled to hit my market, but they were
selling a few players and a few movies anyway. Stargate was a crappy
movie but I was still drooling. Watching a 2.35:1 movie letterboxed on
a 27" tv, with all that detail and smoothness, was eye-popping after
nothing but VHS for years (LD was out of my price league). A Gameboy
game has a better resolution than a letterboxed VHS tape.

I think the only things they were selling were those early IMAX discs.

--

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in
Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned
out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"

--C.S. Lewis

 

I first saw it in my own house upon purchasing my first Panasonic player in
1998. The first disc I watched was L.A. Confidential (my first purchase),
and I was blown away. My collection is now passing 400...

Mike

 

I was working at an electronics/home theatre store when the first DVDs and
DVD players arrived in 1997 or '98 (we were one of the first stores to
carry them). I remember being unimpressed by the picture quality at first,
all those pixels and artifacts on a movie like Outbreak, and the sound
didn't measure up against the uncompressed sound of a good laserdisc
setup. I even had both laserdisc and DVD copies of some of those
Lumivision discs, and stuck with the lasers in most cases.

The technology sure has changed since then, although laserdiscs still
continued to trump DVDs in the soundtrack department for some time after
that.

swac

 

I saw it with my first DVD player in September of 2000. I cannot
remember the first movie watched, it was whatever was just out on DVD
at the time. My first purchase was "For the Love of the Game." I
know, but I grew up a Tiger's fan. We were watching it on a 27"
analog TV and even letterboxed it was so much clearer then VHS. I was
hooked. Just yesterday I hit number 1900 on the DVD profiler list. I
do like my library.

--
The Day PP was speechless, April 20, 2004.

"This may actually be the strangest idea ever in abp. I think you got
me, WC--I'm speechless. A guy in a female road runner suit... that's
just not right."

Wild Coyote
wild_coyote<AT>whoppermail.com

 

You bought your first player and discs sight-unseen?

--

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in
Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned
out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"

--C.S. Lewis

 

Huh? I thought it would be interesting to know what people's first DVDs
were. I don't know what you're talking about.

I once met a guy who told me that Laserdisc bombed not long after it was
released, he said it did worse than Betamax (which *also* shows
ignorance about Betamax). He still wouldn't believe me when I told him
it had much success as a niche format. I heard Rolls Royce only sold
about ten thousand cars last year, they must be tanking....

"And it has commentary from the director!"
"The director of LEPRECHAUN II!!!"

--

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in
Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned
out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"

--C.S. Lewis

 

Boy, that's kind of late. Never even saw a store demo?

I didn't get my first player until 2001 though, I'm so ashamed...but on
the bright side, my first DVDs were Barry Lyndon and The Searchers. Man
I was jazzed, that had to be one of the happiest days in my life. A
whole movie, on that little disc, with picture way better than VHS. I
was in heaven.

Man, I wish I had a collection half that size. Count your blessings (oh
wait, you already did).

--

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in
Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned
out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"

--C.S. Lewis

 

"...because I was that desperate to play the 'This group is going to
Heck in a handbasket!--The End is Near!" card when it looked like the
current flamewar thread was losing steam and being forgotten..."

I remember Siskel & Ebert showing America how much better Tom Cruise
looked dancing up the wall in "Interview with the Vampire" than on
laserdisc--
And, like most people at the time, thinking "Uh...it's STILL laserdisc.
Real people own VCR's."

These were, after all, the days of that "Third Rock From the Sun"
episode.

Derek Janssen ("Uh, guys...It's 'Leprechaun II"!)

 

It was at Best Buy before they actually had any DVD players
available for sale. They had a wide screen TV with surround
sound playing the movie Twister.

Sold me on the home theater concept right away.

 

Laserdisc *did* bomb when it was first introduced. Because of the
confusion between RCA's Selectavision system (which used a stylus to guide
the playback head, and was error prone from the get-go) and Laserdisc,
people were willing to accept lesser picture quality (but not *that* much
lesser, if you look at those late-'70s laserdisc pressings) for the
ability to record on videotape.

But, laserdisc proved to be useful as a training device, in institutions
like schools and museums, and most importantly, the Pentagon, which kept
the format afloat until the consumer electronic market (most notably the
high end home theatre movement) could catch up with the technology. As a
result, the format had a good 10-12 years, before DVD quickly put the
kibosh on it.

swac
Doubt my '78 bowling instruction laserdisc will show up on DVD any time
soon...

 

[first DVD experience]

So did I, pretty much. I'd seen something *about* DVD on a TV at a local
electronics store, extolling the quality and mentioning some of the titles
available, but I don't know for sure that it was *sourced* from DVD.

So my first confirmed experience was in my apartment on 12 February 1998,
with a player (Sony DVP-S7000, no switches) and four DVDs (_Blade Runner_,
_A Hard Day's Night_, _Reservoir Dogs_ and _Little Shop of Horrors_).

(It wasn't such a risk: if I'd really disliked the new format, I'd have
taken the player back under the 30-day guarantee, sold the discs and thus
recouped the majority of my investment.)

doug

 

Not to mention the special-order import availability of rare titles on
region-free foreign and Japanese releases, which kept the
collector-niche market afloat until Voyager/Criterion made it cool...

Derek Janssen (okay, geeks, brag away--"Song of the South"'s on the
left, uncut "Star Wars" on the right)

 

Yeah. After reading up on the format, I had faith. (I had seen L.A.
Confidential in the theater, BTW, and it was my favorite movie of 1997.)

Mike

 

my first experience was at a DOW store in escondido. STARGATE was showing,
improperly setup of course so it looked like a saturday-afternoon italian
western. I caught some artifacts and like a classic LD diehard said aloud
"it looks like shit".

i stayed away for a while, in protest to divx. as soon as its death was
announced, i picked up my first player; a pioneer to match my LD player. oh
BTW i am on my 3rd DVD player. The LD player still lives and gets heavy use.
The Pioneer dvd player died after 5 months. so did a jvc. now i have a year
and a half old cyberhome. i will never go back to consumer level "brand
name" crap.

I am reminded of this everytime i see an imporperly set up HDTV system,
honeslty i dont think i have seen one yet at ANY shop.

so what about the first time anyone saw a CDI?

--
_________________________________
Home of the Tiltwheel
http://listen.to/tiltwheel
makin a racket and encouraging ruckus
_________________________________

 

"'Song of the South'? Good. Line to the left. One cross each."

-- jayembee

 

Forgive me, I should have clarified that he meant LD bombed shortly
after it came out and never came back. He didn't believe me when I told
him it had success as a luxury item for twenty-something years, and that
people still hold onto their collections.

--

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in
Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned
out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"

--C.S. Lewis

 

You prefer a Cyberhome to a mid-level Toshiba?

I think HDTVs would be selling at least five or ten percent more than
they have been if they were being properly set up in stores, with a
calibrated picture (nothing fancy, just a basic DVE tuneup), and a
quality HD feed.

I first saw it at a Radioshack. It was some demo "thing" with a CG owl.
Non-interactive.

I later saw it for sale at a Bigg's, it was a non-interactive demo with
clips from 7th Guest and some other stuff. It looked unbelievably cool
in 94 or 95, what with the full-motion video. Of course, video
capability added a hundred bucks to the basic cost, and since video was
CD-i's main selling point, there was no reason to buy a unit that
couldn't do video. Possibly the most half-baked game system in history,
if you want to call it a game system.

--

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in
Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned
out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"

--C.S. Lewis

 

March, 1997. Ordered player. Got it in April.
-Rich

 

I don't remember the exact date, but the first time I saw DVD in action was
a local Montgomery Wards, where they had a first generation Panasonic model
selling for around $500 dollars or so. I had been reading about DVD for
months in issues of "Video" magazine, and was very anxious to see it for the
very first time.

I'm still amazed, and so happy, with the way that the DVD caught on. I
wanted it to from the outset, but feared that it would forever be a "niche"
format such as laserdisc. When a local Target devoted a small aisle to DVDs,
I wondered at the time how long that space would remain allocated until they
gave up on the notion...famous last words. : )

 

Feh...I'm just glad to have my Japanese LD of The Great Rock and Roll
Swindle, which includes the great John Snagg-narrated trailer (complete
with Russ Meyer-shot footage not in the film!) and a great looking
laserdisc of The Stones in the Park.

swac
And that Beatles Ready Steady Go disc...and Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips...