| Show r Home Entertainment Now playing everywhere DVD has theater-qualit- y jrj r Cj sound and picture plus loads of extras Never mind that Stewart’s only DVD player — at in least for now — is in his Special Edition his home office Like millions of others Stewart an advertising copywriter from suburban Chicago ters so you can skip back and forth And the sound and pichas caught the DVD bug “You can fast forward ture quality are much higher” he says “It’s pretty cool” and rewind and the movie’s all broken into chap- For the uninitiated DVDs are to the film industry what CDs were to the music industry 10 years ago And just as CDs have almost completely usurped audio cassettes promoters hope the digital video disc with Internet connectivity will similarly replace the VHS tape Ten million players have been sold since March 1997 The VCR took milestone So far eight years to reach that 10 million-un- it this year about 6 million players have been sold and many expect the holiday season to boost that figure to 9 million Maybe even more than that: A recent Consumer Electronics Association survey of 1000 shoppers found one in five planned to buy a DVD player this Christmas “The current growth for DVD is tremendous and we expect to see the surge accelerate as we gear up for the holiday season” says Emiel Petrone chairman of the DVD Entertainment Group The increasing popularity of the DVD player — which like a VCR is simply a unit that hooks up to a television set — is (thanks in large part to the format’s theater-qualit- y sound And picture While a standard VHS can display about 330 lines of resolution a DVD provides 480 lines And like a CD DVDs can be forwarded and rewound more quickly and accurately than a tape and played hundreds of times without ever degrading Also the DVD usually provides extras: commentary by the director footage cut from the original film interactive elements Men in Black Limited Edition lists 21 extras including an editing workshop that allows viewers to choose shots from various scenes then piece them back together and replay their own version AtLast a blood glucose monitor that But before you run out and plunk down anywhere from for a high-en- d unit a $100 for a basic model to $1 000-plcompletely eliminates fingersticks few caveats: First the DVD player might not be the ideal Join the thousands of people with diabetes gift for that aunt who just mastered her VCR and isn’t into 17k who have discovered At Last the alternate endings and concept art stills “You’re never going to get rid of video because it’s says i system that lets you test blood sugar Robert Wederquist editor of DVDJoumalcom a Web site from areas less sensitive than your fingers devoted to all things DVD Wederquist also points out that recordable players at $3000 are not yet a realistic option And every AtLast System comes with a for “someone who just wants to tape Ally McBeaL ” Pain-Fre- e Guarantee See your pharmacist Then again for those like Stewart the perfect gift might be a portable DVD player (pictured above) The players or call just today from about $400 to $1600 let travelers — corporate frequent flyers and minivan kids — watch films just about anyNo More Fingersticks? where “It’s nice to be able to watch my own movie instead of the one the plane is showing” Stewart says ta For or call BY ELLEN ALMER THE PAST YEAR Geoffrey Stewart bought about 30 DVDs among them sci-- fi thriller The Matrix three films Kevin Smith and most recently indie director by Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur epic Jurassic Park OVER f all-in-o- idiot-proo- Yr AiLast free information wwwamiracom to order 8 0 1 ELLEN ALMER 12 USA WEEKEND-De- t freelance writer bated in Chicago c 2000 f” - |
