4 common problems with DVDs

The mighty DVD, the VHS killer, is still important to keep your purchased shows and movies under your ownership. With physical media becoming more and more important as Sony phases out disc production, let’s talk about some issues with DVDs. From format limitations to region locking, DVD is not immune to criticism.

DVD launched in the United States in 1997, a year after Japan. However, it was not until the 2000s that DVDs really began to take over. At launch, players could cost between $600, but by 2001, they cost less than $175. A 2001 BBC report even cites that Thanksgiving the year before saw players drop to $68.

Compared to VHS, which won out over Betamax and LaserDisc, DVD offered many conveniences. Better picture and sound were a main selling point, with digital quality eclipsing VHS. There was no need to rewind when finished, and some films like “The Lord of the Rings” became best known for their many extra features and behind-the-scenes sequences. That said, there are some problems with DVDs.

There’s nothing worse than sitting down to watch a movie and being forced to watch the previews and warnings. This is why the slogan “You wouldn’t steal a car” is ingrained in many minds. Although hated, this hasn’t stopped Blu-Ray releases from following suit, with recent releases, like “Stranger Things”, including over five minutes of advertising before starting.

A huge advantage of VHS was complete control over the tape. The ads were front-loaded, but you were never forced to scroll through them. In fact, some of the scariest hack warnings are best ignored for kids growing up with them. On DVD, it was a guessing game as to whether you could skip, or at least fast forward through the commercials.

Some DVDs would let you press the menu button and jump straight to the action, but again, this was pure luck on first watch. In 2012, DVDs and Blu-Rays carried government piracy warnings, which took 20 seconds. However, the clever folks at VLC have figured out how to ignore everything by default, if you’re still one of the few with a DVD player on your PC.

DVD is like a dead language; it was refined to a certain point, and then it stopped. In NTSC regions it topped out at 480p, while PAL came in at 576p. Once TVs upgraded to HD, the quality of DVDs suddenly showed the upper limits of what they could do, unless you had a TV or player with dedicated upscaling capabilities. DVDs never looked this bad on an HD display, but once Blu-Ray came along, the physical media of choice in terms of quality wasn’t even a conversation.

Then there are DVDs with terrible picture quality. This is not the fault of the format, but of whoever put the DVD together. While Blu-Ray has some high-profile films to avoid in the format, DVD was known for some cheap productions. Spaghetti Western fanatics have discussed some of the worst transfers, with screenshots from some films laden with blur and poor image quality.

Bad versions include “The Abyss: Special Edition,” in which James Cameron’s sci-fi film appears to have versions with poor sound quality or no anamorphic presentation. Another, “Outland”, starring Sean Connery, is known for producing a 4:3 version of the film, with poor image quality cited by many Internet users. Even other genres, like anime, were hit with poor transfers to DVD in some early print runs, as the industry hadn’t really made the leap to digital yet.

Yes, region codes and region locking on DVDs are annoying, but there’s a good reason. PAL regions would play at 25fps and NTSC at 24fps, optimized for the way power is generated for TVs. Screens in NTSC regions would run at 60 Hz, while PAL and European regions were at 50 Hz. Playing NTSC on a PAL screen (or vice versa) will be truncated or in most cases produce an error.

Then there is the money factor. Region coding allowed studios to avoid losing movie ticket or DVD sales through imports if the film was not released simultaneously around the world. As was the case with most films in the 2000s, the Americas would usually get a film first, then it would arrive later in regions like the UK or Europe. Back then, DVD sales were critical to a film’s overall success.

Region locking can be bypassed, and inexpensively these days. Amazon is full of players that claim to offer region-free playback. If you choose to watch them on your PC via VLC and a DVD player, you may not be able to bypass the hardware’s regional encoding, so check first.

With the future of physical media production looking increasingly bleak (thanks Sony!) and newer releases potentially seeing nothing more than a digital store or streaming platform, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with certain films on DVD. July 2026 is pretty busy for DVD releases, but some key films, like “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair” and “The Drama,” skip DVD entirely. Movies coming to DVD don’t seem to be the problem; It’s distribution.

In 2023, Best Buy withdrew from the sale of DVD and Blu-Ray discs. DVD sales have been in decline for several years, with the “physical entertainment market” falling 16% year-on-year in 2021, and in a 2024 report, UK retailer HMV’s head of film and TV, John Delaney, said “60% of our sales” were to premium options over everything else.

You can’t even pick up a potentially scratched DVD from a Redbox anymore. For new releases, it seems DVD buyers are stuck between Amazon and dedicated stores, as some smaller ones now widely offer Blu-Ray or 4K options on DVD. DVD is unlikely to come back in the same way as vinyl. Since 2011, the market has fallen by 95%, and without offering the quality or capacity needed for additional features such as Blu-Ray, DVDs could simply disappear altogether outside of what is currently in circulation.