The ’90s were a turning point. For those who spent the ’80s wrestling with videotapes and lusting after imported LaserDiscs, the arrival of DVD felt like a reward — a long-awaited leap into proper digital home cinema. It wasn’t just about better picture. It was about control. Navigation. Bonus content. Clean, crisp playback every single time. And for collectors? It was heaven.
DVD Arrives – And It’s the Real Deal
In the mid-1990s, a handful of tech giants — Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic — agreed on a universal format. They called it DVD, and it promised to combine the best of both worlds: the sharp visuals of LaserDisc with the convenience (and compact size) of a CD.
The US got DVD in early 1997. Japan slightly earlier. But the UK? We had to wait. It wasn’t until 1998 that the first DVD players showed up in major retailers, priced somewhere between “ambitious early adopter” and “wildly unaffordable.” But for the AV crowd, price was no object.
And the discs? They came with Dolby Digital soundtracks, anamorphic widescreen, subtitles, and — best of all — no rewinding.
Early Releases that Turned Heads
One of the first things that made DVD stand out was how studios approached the format. These weren’t just transfers slapped onto a disc. You got menus. You got featurettes. You got director’s commentaries.
The UK’s early line-up included titles like Twister, The Fugitive, and Lethal Weapon 4. They weren’t just good movies — they were good demo material. Lots of bass. Explosions. Rain. It was clear these were designed to show off what your new player (and sound system) could do.
By 1999, things got serious. The Matrix hit DVD and basically broke the mould. Razor-sharp video. A proper 5.1 surround mix. Behind-the-scenes documentaries. Animated menus. It raised expectations across the board. People didn’t just want films — they wanted experiences.
A New Kind of Home Cinema
The technology behind DVD wasn’t just marketing spin. Compared to VHS, the quality was night and day.
PAL DVDs in the UK had a resolution of 720×576 — way sharper than VHS’s approximate 333×576. Add in MPEG-2 compression, and you got full-length films on a single disc, with no visible tape grain or colour smearing. Audio came in Dolby Digital (and sometimes DTS), with proper discrete channels. For the first time, you could set up a surround system in your front room and actually get cinema-quality sound.
People did. Hi-fi mags started publishing speaker placement diagrams. Retailers bundled players with amp-and-speaker sets. Everyone from Curry’s to What Hi-Fi? jumped on board.
Region Coding and the Rise of the Multi-Region Hack
Here’s where things got complicated — and a little bit fun for the tech-savvy.
DVDs introduced region codes, which meant a disc sold in the US (Region 1) wouldn’t play on a UK player (Region 2). Studios claimed it was about protecting release windows. Most users thought it was a hassle.
Cue a black market of multi-region players. Some were sold unlocked, others needed a secret remote control sequence. Online forums like AVForums were packed with guides, hacks, and firmware tweaks. For collectors, this was a golden era — suddenly, you could import Criterion editions, special features never released in the UK, and hard-to-find cult films.
And yes, it gave DVD a certain rebellious edge. You weren’t just watching films — you were unlocking them.
The Retail Explosion
Once prices fell below £300, things took off. High street shops like HMV and Virgin dedicated entire walls to DVD. You could browse by genre, director, or label. Bonus features were plastered across the covers. “Digitally Remastered!” “Widescreen Edition!” “Includes Deleted Scenes!”
Rental shops adapted too. Blockbuster and Choices Video began stocking both VHS and DVD side-by-side, but it didn’t last long. DVDs were smaller, easier to store, and didn’t wear out. By the early 2000s, DVD had won — completely.
Box Sets, Reissues, and the Rise of the Collector’s Edition
Studios saw the potential early. If fans were willing to buy one film with extras, they’d definitely buy three. Or ten. And so came the collector’s box set.
From The Godfather Trilogy to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, releases began bundling films with commentaries, booklets, art cards, and hours of behind-the-scenes footage. Some even had alternate cuts. For fans of directors like Ridley Scott or Peter Jackson, it was a dream.
In many ways, DVDs made collecting mainstream. People took pride in their shelves. You could tell what someone was into just by scanning their cases. Here’s a great round-up of iconic DVD releases that defined the era.
Tech Specs, if You’re That Way Inclined
DVDs used 4.7GB single-layer discs, or 8.5GB for dual-layer. That meant enough room for a full film, trailer, commentary track, and subtitles — all thanks to MPEG-2 compression.
The video was encoded at a variable bit rate, usually around 4–6 Mbps. Audio typically came in AC-3 (Dolby Digital), sometimes in DTS for the big-budget stuff. You also got 16:9 enhancement, proper chapter stops, and closed captioning.
Not bad for something that came in a £9.99 plastic case.
How It Changed the Way We Watch
It wasn’t just the tech. DVDs changed our relationship with movies. No more rewinding. No more fuzz. You could jump to your favourite scene, rewatch it in slow-mo, then dive into a director’s breakdown of how it was filmed.
Even the way we talked about films changed. Suddenly, casual viewers knew about aspect ratios. People started using phrases like “non-anamorphic transfer” in pubs. And it wasn’t just film students doing it.
That’s how deep DVD ran — it pulled people into the craft of cinema, just by making it accessible.
The Legacy
By 2000, DVD had outpaced VHS in the UK. Sales soared. Rentals shifted. New titles often skipped tape altogether.
It laid the path for Blu-ray, digital downloads, and eventually streaming — but none of that would’ve worked without the DVD teaching people to expect better. To care about picture quality. To expect extras.
And it gave us a reason to own films again. That little rush when you cracked open a new case, explored the menus, and found something unexpected in the bonus section — you can’t quite replicate that in a stream.