Chapter 1

General DVD 11
does not include adult titles, which account for an additional 15 percent or
so.) By March 2003, six years after the launch, over 1.5 billion copies of
DVD titles had been shipped.
A number of DVD launches in Europe were announced with little followthrough,
but DVDs became established in Europe around the end of 1998.
The availability of DVD software in Europe was initially about 18 months to
a year behind the United States, but this gap has shortened over the years
to a delay of only a few months to a few weeks.
Many Internet databases can be used to search for DVD titles. Here are
a few of the best sites:
• Internet Movie Database DVD Browser (info on all regions,
us.imdb.com/Sections/DVDs)
• Doug MacLean’s Home Theater Info list (region 1, downloadable list,
www.hometheaterinfo.com/dvdlist.htm)
• DVD Entertainment Group (region 1, searchable and downloadable
database, www.dvdinformation.com/titles)
• Widescreen Review (widescreen-specific DVD titles, www.
widescreenreview.com)
• Most Internet DVD stores also have searchable lists (See “Where
Can I Buy (or Rent) DVDs and Players?” in Chapter 6, which lists
Web sites where you can buy or rent DVDs)
DVD-Audio started even slower than DVD-Video. The first commercially
available DVD-Audio title, Big Phat Band, was released in October 2000 on
the Silverline label of 5.1 Entertainment. Major music labels BMG Entertainment,
EMI Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music have committed
to DVD-Audio titles, although in the fall of 2001 Universal announced it
would release SACD titles first. As of the end of 2001, just under 200
DVD-Audio titles were available. By mid-2003 about 600 DVD-Audio titles
and about 900 SACD titles were available worldwide. The first SACD titles
were released in Japan in May of 1999.
DVD-ROM computer software is slowly appearing. Many initial
DVD-ROM titles were only available as part of a hardware or software bundle.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) predicted 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 contain the same material. In many cases, CD-
ROMs are big enough that DVD-ROMs are unnecessary, but DVD-ROMs
can take advantage of the high-quality video and multichannel audio capabilities
being added to many DVD-ROM-equipped computers.