I: DVD-Love, Or, How I Learned to Stop Fretting and Love a New Format

Ever since the videocassette player/recorder revolutionized the home entertainment market and theatrical movies became available (if not always affordable) for either rental or purchase, I have been collecting videos of movies that I have enjoyed so much at the theater that I am willing to pay to own (rather than wait till they air on the broadcast networks or cable channels such as HBO or Cinemax). For almost 20 years, this meant owning a VCR and buying VHS tapes of such movies as Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Casablanca. And even though a few companies such as RCA, Panasonic, and Pioneer attempted to make inroads into the home entertainment market by introducing the laser disc player in the early 1980s, the VCR and the familiar VHS tape reigned supreme.

That all changed in the late 1990s with the advent of the DVD format, which combined the vast superiority of the laser disc -- better sound, better picture, scene selection, and no rewinding -- with the size and compatibility of the 1980s era audio compact disc. The Japanese and European (mostly Dutch) inventors of the DVD must have realized that the laser disc players of the early 1980s could only perform one function (play laser discs), while VCRs could at least record programs from the networks as well as play pre-recorded videos. Also, the size of the early laser discs (about the size of an old vinyl 33 RPM long-playing record) made them awkward to handle and store. In a stroke of engineering genius -- and stimulated by the growing demand for CD-ROM software for computers -- the inventors of the DVD (which stand for either Digital Video Disc or Digitally Versatile Disc) chose to combine the strengths of the laser disc with the portability of an audio compact disc. And by increasing the thickness of a standard CD just a tad, the new DVD format could now hold enough data to play a three hour movie.

For me, the DVD revolution proved to be both a curse and a blessing. A curse, of course, because I had invested several hundred dollars into my library of prerecorded videotapes, starting in 1984 when VCRs still cost over $300 and VHS versions of theatrical movies were priced at $79.99 each. Over the years, I'd replaced two VCRs and several videotapes that were either defective and broke seconds into a first viewing or were "eaten" by a dying VCR, which is how my first copy of Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extraterrestrial met its doom...but for the most part, most of my videos remain in playable condition.

The blessings (for there are many) of the new format far outweigh the downside of slowly but surely replacing VHS versions of favorite films with their DVD edition. First, while most home video versions of theatrical movies are presented in their full-screen editions (i.e., edited in such a way that a film shot for and screened on a movie theater's rectangular screen can fit in a square-ish television screen), most movies released on DVD appear in their original widescreen format. While we viewers have to put up with those black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, we do get to see the movie as we originally saw it at our local multiplex, albeit at home and on a smaller screen. Furthermore, because the DVD is the "smarter, richer" cousin to the audio CD and CD-ROM, the quality of the sound, often in Dolby stereo and 5.1 surround formats, is clearly superior to VHS's analog HiFi stereo sound. (Not only that, but a DVD can contain several audio tracks, including foreign language tracks and director's commentaries in addition to its original soundtrack!)

Second, we can now watch a movie from any scene we want without having to fast forward or rewind a strip of durable but fragile magnetic tape. As in its larger but unpopular older cousin, the laserdisc, DVDs are divided into numbered scenes or "chapters." So if I want to watch, say, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace at the climactic duel between Darth Maul and the two Jedi, I don't have to worry about either wearing out the tape or jumping too far ahead and missing the desired starting point. All I have to do is look at the Scene Selection menu on the screen (or a list in the liner notes) and pick it with the remote. Easy as pie.


II: The Samsung DVD-631P 5-Disc DVD Changer.

My first DVD player -- if you don't count my first DVD-ROM drive -- was a KLH Audio offering which, although freeing me from having to sit in my room in front of a PC to watch a good movie on the new format, caused me more headaches than I had bargained for. It was a very inexpensive machine (less than $90 in 2000) and at first it wasn't too bad when it played a first-generation DVD (circa 1998-1999) as long as I didn't ask too much from it. If I just slipped a disc into the tray and just hit PLAY MOVIE when the disc menu came up, 90 percent of the time it would play the movie without too many hassles. There were a few discs that, mysteriously, would just not function properly; Saving Private Ryan, for instance, would freeze and go into pixel-blurring frenzies at Chapter 16. At first I thought I'd bought a bad disc, but when I played it on a friend's General Electric DVD machine it played perfectly; no freezing, no pixel-blurring.

Things got worse over the next two years. As the major studios started rolling out discs with really snazzy menus and extra features disc, the KLH DVD player became more problem-prone and either exhibited the same freeze up at a certain point glitch it had with Saving Private Ryan or worse, it wouldn't play some DVDs at all. For instance, when I bought my copy of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones in November of 2002, the KLH player would work with Disc 1 (the feature film) but it would reject Disc 2 (the extra features). Ditto for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: The Collector's Edition and any post 2002 disc that had graphics-heavy menus and other advanced features.

I had two alternatives, neither of which appealed to me: (a) watch newer DVDs on my eMachines PC (which at the time was also new) and spend even more time holed up in my room, or (b) bite the bullet and buy a better DVD player. For a while I dithered like Hamlet; I couldn't really afford to spend $175 or more because of my low income. My pet-sitting gigs are relatively long ones but they do come to an end when my two main clients come ashore from their cruise ship jobs, and my ghostwriting client was becoming more combative and less forthcoming with writing jobs, so I opted to watch movies on my PC until I could afford a more reliable and versatile DVD player.

By the summer of 2003, however, I'd had enough. I like my computer just fine and I don't mind working for several hours at my desk. Heck, I even spend time socializing online or playing long games such as Sid Meier's Civilization II and Star Wars: Rebellion for even more hours, but even I get claustrophobia and want to spend time away from my room. So in June of '03 my friend Raci and I went to Best Buy and I picked out a new DVD player...the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer.

General Features: Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer

DVD Changer: holds five DVDs or CDs; provides full random play and relatively quick disc changes.

Great Sound: The Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer has Dolby Digital sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories; the sound is crystal clear, making it not only good for watching movie DVDs but as a secondary CD player.

Screen: Both "full screen" and "widescreen" (16:9) DVD formats are viewable on the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer without any distortion or degradation of the picture.

Slow Motion

Programmed Play: The Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer can be programmed to play CD, WMA and MP3 tracks in any desired order.

Parental Control: Parents can program the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer to prevent their kids from watching such fare as Die Hard or Jenna Jameson: Baby Doll by setting a password-protected viewing level.

On-Screen Menu Functions: Want to change the audio or subtitle options? Or perhaps you want to see a different screen angle? The various on-screen menu options let you do this relatively easily.

Progressive Scan: This was something my old KLH Audio DVD junkheap lacked...progressive scan, which gives owners of the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer a better and sharper image with twice the scan lines of a conventional interlaced picture.

Easy View: Are you a "full screen" fanatic who still likes the pan-and-scan format of standard TV and VHS videos? With the touch of the "Easy View" button on your remote, you can switch a "widescreen" DVD's picture to "full screen" view on a conventional television set.

Digital Photo Viewer (JPEG): Want to see digital JPEG-format photos that you have stored on a CD-RW disc on your TV set? With the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer, you can.

Repeat

MP3/WMA: The Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer can play discs created from MP3/WMA files.

Instant Replay

Instant Skip

Performance: In the nearly two years that I've owned my Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer I haven't had any of the problems exhibited by my first DVD player; it has played all of the DVDs I have in my video library, including the newer Star Wars Trilogy DVD set. I haven't had any problems with playback related to the machine itself; the two or three times that I've had frame-freeze or DVD-drag issues is when I've neglected to check the discs' underside for dust particles or minor debris; I always store my movies in their cases after using them, but sometimes dust or an errant finger will make contact with the silvery playing surface and cause playback errors. When this happens, I get out my DVD cleaning kit and get rid of the dust or fingerprint, and this always solves the problem.

Although I chose the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer because I wanted to be able to play, say, all three movies of The Adventures of Indiana Jones DVD box set in one sitting, the most that I have attempted to do is to play both discs of a 2-disc set (say, Aliens, for instance). It doesn't take too long to open the tray, put one disc on its carousel, hit DISC SKIP on the remote, then let the carousel move so you can place the second disc in. As a matter of fact, I prefer the bigger size of the disc tray to my KLH's trickier single-disc tray; it slides out more slowly, sure, but it isn't as sensitive to touch and doesn't suddenly retract while you are still placing your disc on the carousel. (I lost a couple of early DVDs to my KLH Audio DVD player in this fashion!) DISC SKIP is also somewhat leisurely but -- to me, anyway -- that is not a drawback. At least I don't have to swap out discs if I want to watch a movie and its supplementary materials or listen to two or more albums.

It also takes a little while for the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer to "load" a DVD while the laser beam reads and initializes a DVD. Someone else remarked that the process takes too long, but I don't see any difference between the time it takes to load and play than on any of my friends' equally good Toshiba or Panasonic players. I realize that there are people who need instant gratification, but it's not like it takes hours, even minutes for a DVD to load. CD playback is almost instantaneouus; in fact, I have had to stop the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer when it starts playing an audio disc because I'll miss the first microsecond.

To ensure quality playback and prevent damage to the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer, you should use a CD-DVD lens cleaning disc at least once a week.

As good as it is, the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer does have limits. It does play factory made DVDs and audio CDs flawlessly, but it will not be compatible-- according to the manufacturer -- with the following discs or formats:

DVD-ROM
CD-ROM
CDI
HD layer of Super Audio CDs
CDGs (the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer will play back only the audio, not the graphics)
DVD-RAM
CDV

Additionally, the Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc DVD Changer will support the following formats depending on recording conditions:
DVD-R
DVD+RW, RW
CD-RW

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 150