DVDs are Different to VHS

Der!!!

But think about *why* really* when they have the same story on them.
The same movie, dialogue, shots, plot, score, actors and scenery.
It's not just that we tend to be watching them on *much* larger tellies these days, with surround sound - there's something that dvd can add to the story - I can *feel* it.

Let me give you an example of how my own consumption has changed. In 1986, a film came out called "Highlander" and it was neat. It had a rockin' score, a huge scary bad guy, and swords!! (Yeah, pretty sword-starved in those days) or, if that is too groan-worthy for you, another favourite film of the time was Dirty Dancing (no link needed). So we watched these films on VHS over and over and over. I was 15 then - I didn't have a car, I didn't have any study  load, I had part-time jobs that my folks had to drive me to, so they were local labouring things, and tv, if you can believe it, was even more barren than it is now (we can debate that another time if anyone feels the need). So each of my sisters and I had at least 15 to 20 tapes that we would tape stuff onto so we could watch things.
Now, I'm not talking about the ability of a DVD to jump to chapters - we had a time code on the VHS and we knew how to use it. I'm not talking about the "making of" stuff (which I *love and watch loads of) even though that always seems to include the directer 
wanking on about how critical the story was to the core of the vision of the 
crew and the love-in and blah blah blah, coz, that was available too. 
(Check the making of "Goldfinger" for an amazing analogue version of the
 'making of' featurette).

No, I think that there's two things that particularly suggests the future will be very different.

One is language. DVDs are much easier to add subtitles too. We don't notice this so much because we're English speakers consuming films made in English. But go through your favourite films, and look at the wealth of languages you could experience them in. This is one thing that hollywood does much more than the English film industry. Why would a region 4 disc have Hungarian rather than Mandarin or Malay? I'm not sure, and I've distracted myself from my point. They have subtitles out the wa-hoo, and about 50% of the time, a whole 'nother dubbed language too!
You can watch the "Fifth Element" in French. "V for Vendetta", "Starship Troopers" and "Batman Begins" in German. Yes way.
Also in German: "Unforgiven", "Black Rain" and Blade Runner. 
Look at the stories we're sharing with other people!! 
Name a German film you've seen with English subtitles.
No, "Nightwatch" was Russian.
"Der Himmel Uber Berlin" is the only one I can think of - sure I've been out of the loop for a while, but I'd love to be corrected.
There's a huge number of people who are hungry for inspiration and entertainment, and they aren't waiting for free-to-air to provide it anymore. SBS is onto a good thing - there's a lot more stories out there about to come to English speakers - if we're lucky.

Secondly, is the sheer portability of the format and the breadth of machines it's loaded into. DVD players are tiny, they are light, they plug into nearly anything, and they masquerade as anything from laptops to Xboxes.
Yesterday, Lee loaded an episode of Battle Star Gallactica into his *phone*.
His phone!!

Our stories, the universes we love to escape to or emulate can be with us wherever we can re-charge our phone. My old VHS could never do that - I had to deal with reality all through the 80s, and most of the 90s....

Actually, there's been a slight historical inaccuracy for part of this blog, we had a Beta, not a VHS for the first few years.