Home Theater Design Buying Guide:
DVD Buying Guide
A DVD Buying Guide? What the heck do I need that for?....Well, for starters, you may think that picking out a DVD is as simple as "do I want the black bars or not", but it's not. More importantly, you deserve to make the most out of your home theater experience! After all, you spent all that money so you could watch TV, movies, and play video games in style, didn't you?.
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A DVD library of you and your family's favorite movies and TV shows is often the cornerstone of your home theater experience. We want to help you get the most out of that experience so we're going to share with you the extensive knowledge we've gained over the years while building our own personal DVD collections.
Fullscreen or Widescreen?
This is another question I'm frequently asked, so I decided to include a brief discussion about it here in our DVD buying guide.Within the guild of DVD collectors, I would get ripped for even posing such a question! While it's not the simplest thing to explain, if you're a purist you will always choose WIDESCREEN. Fullscreen, often refered to as "pan-n-scan", is presented in a format in which the film was not actually intended to be seen. Many choose fullscreen versions of their favorite movies simply because the don't want to see the "black bars" at the top and bottom of the TV. To scale the image to your television, a fullscreen DVD cuts off a portion of the actual viewing image as it was filmed. Often, important elements to a scene are missing and whether realized or not, can lead to a different experience for the audience.
Aspect Ratios
This is another important aspect to our DVD buying guide. In short, you typically don't have varying alternatives to choose from when a movie is released to DVD in terms of aspect ratios. Across your DVD collection, however, it may be important to know the prevalence of an aspect ratio if you're attempting to determine the most appropriate size of your TV screen (especially if you're planning for a large screen and taking advantage of a projector).Video
Video quality is very important to me and most other enthusiasts, as well. For my favorite movies, I tend to upgrade older versions of the movie with the newest version if the transfer has been enhanced. The studios really do a wonderful job of cleaning up older movies made prior to the digital age when they release remastered versions of the movie. Colors often appear more dramatically vivid, lines sharper, and the picture far less "grainy".Sound Encoding
We also would like to take a little time to discuss sound encoding in our DVD buying guide. There's a big debate over whether or not there's much difference in the sound encoding used for a DVD. For the most part, you've got two major players -- Dolby Digital and DTS. Personally, I feel that there's a significant enough difference between the two that I always find myself upgrading or holding out for a version of a movie that is encoded with DTS sound. I think the sound is more detailed and crisp than Dolby Digital.Depending on your system's setup and capabilities, a 6.1 or 7.1 channel DVD may be more enticing to you than the standard 5.1 version. While we're seeing more 6.1 and 7.1 DVD's these days, there still aren't very many to be found. The important thing to note is that unless you already have or intend on having a 6.1 or 7.1 surround sound system in the future, it makes no sense to upgrade or spend the extra money on the better version. Your system doesn't have what is needed to take advantage of the feature.
Bonus Features
This is another good discussion point for our DVD buying guide. I honestly can't say that I have or spend the time to watch all of the bonus features that come along with a particular version of the movie, but I do always opt out for the version laden with the extras. But I do thoroughly enjoy them when I do take some time to watch them. From a collecting standpoint, those with the extra features tend to have more value than those that are "no frills". Many retailers are using bonus features, in addition to customized packaging and exclusive freebies, to differentiate themselves from other retailers selling the same movie. Based on my experience, I've enjoyed most of the extras that I've watched for movies in my DVD collection and would recommend considering them as part of your purchase decision.When To Buy
Now that "next generation" DVD's have hit the market (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD), collectors and casual buyers alike have enjoyed the downard pressure this has had on the prices of movies. Movies that many of us paid $15-20 dollars a couple of years ago can now be had for a fraction of the price.Unless you're dying to see a newly released movie, I would suggest holding out for awhile rather than buying it when it releases. Within 6-12 months (or even sooner) you'll be able to get the movie at a much lower price than what it comes out for on release week. The only exception I would place on that would be exclusive releases to a individual retailer or a special version of the movie (multi-disc, enhanced re-release). Sometimes these more limited versions of the movie become harder to find once they go out of print, forcing you to have to pay a premium to obtain it.
Where can I get the best deals?
Had to include this topic in the DVD buying guide, as I love to save money and want you to be able to do the same! The answer is nowhere! Deals are to be had and made at a variety of online and local retailers. Check your weekly advertisements in your local/regional newspaper. Online, I turn to one of my favorite sites on the Internet, DVDTalk. They have a bargains forum that I frequent multiple times throughout the day where fellow DVD collectors will post deals that they've come across, often to the benefit of others. They've saved me a ton a money over the years and I highly recommend bookmarking the site below in your Internet favorites.DVDTalk - Bargains Forum
Another useful site that I recommend is DVD Price Search. They too have a large database of online merchants from which you can compare prices -- even link directly to a movie on the retailer's website.
DVD Price Search
Reviews
I often rely upon DVDTalk's Reviewer database to get an expert opinion on whether or not a movie is worth upgrading. It's like having a title-specific DVD buying guide right at your fingertips. To some, it might even be useful for determining whether or not you should rent something first or take a chance on a blind buy. You can visit their site by clicking here -- they have a huge repository of reviews and their panel of reviewers are very reliable, thorough, and informative.Catalog Your Movie Library
My DVD buying guide would not be complete unless I told you about how to effectively catalog your DVD library. When your DVD collection has grown to a level where you can't remember if you own a movie or not, it's probably time to inventory what you've got. Thankfully, you can do this for free using DVD Aficionado's wonderful online DVD cataloguing system. Recently enhanced with new features, you can easily manage your DVD library using their software.DVD Aficionado
We hope you have enjoyed our DVD buying guide and that it has helped you in at least some small way be better preprared to know what to buy and when to upgrade as you build your own DVD library.
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