Many people today accept the existence of the DVD without thinking much about it either way. If you want to watch a movie at home you either rent or buy the DVD at the nearest video store. They are small, compact, and easy to use and come packed with a host of extra features. You can jump to any scene you want, watch certain parts over and over again and even take screen shots of the movie if you are watching it on a computer screen. Whether you are watching a vintage Beverly Hillbillies DVD or a newer release, the DVD has made the way we watch movies at home so much easier.
Easier is the right word! For anyone that lived or grew up in the era before the DVD was a common sight, the only way you could watch a movie at home was with a video tape, or the ever popular VHS - big, black bulky things that could only be watched a certain number of times before the film started to lose its color, the sound started getting garbled and the tracking started going haywire. Renting one was another nightmare. More often than not the previous person did not rewind the tape and since so many people have watched it before you, the quality is often not worth the effort. While they were all that was available at one point, now they are disappearing and the DVD is starting offer things as far back as the Beverly Hillbillies. DVD technology has made life much, much simpler.
Unlike the old VHS tapes that basically worked like a portable film projector, something like a Beverly Hillbillies DVD is completely digital. An evolution of the technology that gave us the CD, the DVD uses laser light to read the information on the disc. A series of small grooves and indents on the disc contain the information for the movie or music that is on the disc. As the laser light passes over the grooves and indents, the light is reflected and decoded by the DVD. Since the laser can move to any point on the disc, we are able to view any scene of the movie on the DVD when we want to. The disc has an index that the player can read that has the 'address' of each appropriate scene on the disc allowing you to jump to any part of your Beverly Hillbillies DVD when you want.
While the VHS has not disappeared completely, its days are numbered. The DVD has made life much easier while also lasting longer than a VHS tape could ever hope to last. Get rid of that old tape and go out and buy the Beverly Hillbillies DVD from The Vintage Theatre. As more and more places start switching over on even the old series and movies are making their way to the new format. Small wonder since they are easier to store and will last a lifetime.
