DVD Software: Hours Of Entertainment On A Small Disk

DVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc, officially called DVD ROM, is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. DVDs resemble compact discs as their physical dimensions are the same but they are encoded in a different format and at a much higher density.

All DVDs, replicated or factory pressed, recorded or burned, video, audio, data, or otherwise are DVD ROM discs, though many refer to a DVD ROM as a pressed data disk only. A DVD with properly formatted and structured video content is a DVD Video. DVDs with properly formatted and structured audio are DVD Audio discs. Everything else, including other types of DVD discs with video, is referred to as a DVD Data disc.

DVD Audio is a format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. It offers many channel configuration options, from mono to 5.1 surround sound, at various sampling frequencies and sample rates. Compared with the CD format, the much higher capacity DVD format enables the inclusion of either considerably more music or far higher audio quality. Despite DVD Audio's superior technical specifications, there is debate as to whether or not the resulting audio enhancements are distinguishable to typical human ears. DVD Audio currently forms a niche market, probably due to its dependency upon new and relatively expensive equipment.

DVD Video discs require a DVD drive and an MPEG Two decoder, like a DVD player or a DVD computer drive with a software DVD player. Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG Two compressed video and audio of varying formats, often multi channel formats as described below. Typical data rates for DVD movies range from three to ten mega bits per second, and the bit rate is usually adaptive. A high number of audio tracks or a large amount of extra material on the disc will often result in a lower bit rate, and image quality, for the main feature. The total bitrate including video, audio and subtitles can be a maximum of ten point zero eight mega bits per second.