What are the advantages and disadvantages of DVD vs. laserdisc?
Right now laserdisc is on the way out in the eyes of many collectors, but anyone storing up those shiny platters since the mid-1980s knows that many of the rare titles exclusively issued on laserdisc probably won’t be available again anytime soon. Thus, the biggest advantage to laser is title selection and rarity (and, according to some, the sound quality). DVD features the sharpest picture quality NTSC has to offer and a huge capacity for extra features including commentaries, alternate languages, documentaries, and any other special feature the companies can dream up. On the downside, DVDs are region-encoded, which means Japanese DVDs won’t play on most U.S. machines, but Japanese laserdiscs will. The big deciding factor for most, though, is price; DVDs cost up to 50% less than laserdiscs for (usually) a better quality transfer.
