ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews DVD, which is perhaps the most significant new communication technology since the videocassette recorder (VCR). DVD originally meant digital video disc, but advocates found this label too limiting and changed it to digital versatile disc. Some prefer restricting the name to DVD (just as we no longer refer to IBM as International Business Machines). DVD is a digital storage device that physically resembles a CD. DVD discs look like CDs and DVD players look like high end CD players. DVD-ROM devices are compatible with existing CD discs and are already well on their way to replacing CD-ROM drives on high-end personal computer systems. This technology substitution (Klopfenstein, 1989b) has begun despite the lack of DVD-ROM specific software. Many believe the CD’s days are numbered, with DVD its likely, if not inevitable, successor. A DVD’s visual similarity
to CDs bodes very well for its rapid adoption by users (Rogers, 1995), and because DVD players are backward compatible with CDs of varied formats, the stage is set for rapid DVD technology substitution.
