1.6 What DVD titles are available?
Description
This article is from the DVD Formats FAQ, by jtfrog@usa.net (Jim Taylor) with numerous contributions by others.
1.6 What DVD titles are available?
As with hardware, rosy predictions of hundreds of movie titles for
Christmas of 1996 failed to materialize. Only a handful of DVD titles,
mostly music videos, were available in Japan for the November 1996 launch
of DVD. Actual feature films began to appear in December. By April there
were over 150 titles in Japan. Movies appeared in the US in March of 1997.
As of June 1999 there are about 3,500 titles available in the US and over
5,000 worldwide. Compared to other launches (CD, LD, etc.) this is a huge
number. Almost 19,000 discs were purchased in the first two weeks of the US
launch -- more than expected. InfoTech predicted over 600 titles by the end
of 1997 and more than 8,000 titles by 2000. By December 1997, over 1
million individual DVD discs were shipped. By June 1999, over 30 million
discs had shipped.
Availability of DVD hardware and software in Europe runs about a year to 18
months behind the US. A number of launches were announced with little
follow-through, but DVD began to become established around the end of 1998.
For an extensive, searchable list of movie titles available in the US and
Canada see Jeff Phillips' list at <http://www.thedvdlist.com>. For titles
in Japan and Europe see Niels van Eijkelenburg's list at
<http://www.surroundfreak.com/dvd/dvd2.htm> or Robert's list at
<http://www.unik.no/~robert/hifi/dvd/film2.html>. Also check out the
Internet Movie Database's DVD Browser. Christoph Steinecke's extensive list
of region 1 titles is at <http://www.surroundfreak.com/dvd/dvd1.htm>. New
release lists and announcements are available at
<http://www.image-entertainment.com/laserv.html>. For a list of
widescreen-specific DVD titles, visit http://www.WidescreenReview.com>.
Concorde Video released a PAL-format 12 Monkeys in Germany at the end of
March 1997. They were threatened by Philips with a lawsuit for not
including a multichannel MPEG track, but the issue is now resolved (see
3.6).
DVD-ROM software will slowly appear. Approximately 50% of CD-ROM producers
have announced intentions to develop for DVD-ROM. See 6.2 for a list. Many
initial DVD-ROM titles are only be available as part of a hardware or
software bundle until the market grows larger. IDC expected that over 13
percent of all software would be available in DVD-ROM format by the end of
1998, but reality didn't meet expectations. In one sense, DVD-ROMs are
simply larger faster CD-ROMs and will contain the same material. But
DVD-ROMs can also take advantage of the high-quality video and
multi-channel audio capabilities being added to many DVD-ROM-equipped
computers.
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