Close the windows, bar the door: When it comes to technology, you can't escape acronyms. And when it comes to DVDs, you'll want to be familiar with two terms: DVD-V and DVD-A.
DVD-V
If you've been perusing the DVD movie aisle at your local discount store, you may have thought that you were looking at DVD-ROM - and you would be right. However, it's even more specific than that: A DVD-V (short for DVD-Video, of all things) is a DVD-ROM that holds broadcast-quality digital video in a special compressed format named MPEG-2. (MPEG-2 is a compression format; it's somewhat similar to the space you save when you use Zip compression to shrink a folder full of files on your hard drive.) You also get niceties like Dolby audio, surround sound, subtitles, and different aspect ratios with a DVD-V. You can even run programs from a DVD-V if you're playing it in a computer DVD-ROM drive.
You may ask, "Can I burn a commercial-quality DVD-V with my new DVD recorder?" Technically, yes. However, lots of work is involved in compressing digital video, creating interactive menus, and adding a quality audio track. It's nowhere near as simple as recording something on comfortable old VHS tape.
DVD-A
This fact may break your heart, but even your friend the audio CD is eventually going out to pasture. The likely replacement is a format standard named DVD-A, or DVD-Audio. Imagine a standard audio CD that has been to the gym four nights a week for the past ten years, and you get some idea of what DVD-A is like: either two or four hours of stereo music (depending on the type of media); interactive menus, such as with the current crop of DVD-Vs; and even the ability to store video clips. Plus, DVD-As store music at a higher quality than standard audio CDs and with an even higher dynamic range . . . in other words, they sound even better than your rusty old CDs.
However, the most exciting new feature of DVD-A is the addition of surround sound support. If you're enjoying a surround sound system, you know how realistic it is. If not, try out this type of system the next time you're in a stereo and video store. Although the extra data needed for surround sound cuts the capacity of a DVD-A in half, you're still talking about an hour or two of incredible music.
