As students move into their new dorms or apartments, many may consider the cardboard box with their DVD collection to be the most important and valuable box they own. There are vast amounts of entertainment on those discs; favorite movies, anthologized television shows, educational documentaries, porn.
Many people find a bizarre fascination in not only watching the feature film or episodes, but in proudly displaying their bookshelves full of DVDs-- even more so than book or music collections.To encourage this hobby of collecting and showcasing are websites like dvdaficionado.com, photo accounts from flickr.com, and cataloging applications like Delicious Library.
To skip the commercials and get to the making-of section for this article, the point of this weekly column will essentially be to transcribe my (usually ignored) verbal ramblings about an unhealthy and debt-inducing obsession; reviewing the aesthetics of the packaging, the special features, included media (pamphlets, books, etc.), video and audio quality, commentary, and price of DVD box sets and new releases.
The column will mostly avoid critiquing the episodes or movie itself, save a few sentences. However, it will attempt to also address the common misconceptions (did you know that the acronym of DVD is actually Digital Versatile Disc?), new technologies, region and format discrepancies, how-to information for back-up and burning, the best methods for cleaning, mail-order vs. in-store rental services, and suggestions for where to buy and sell used DVDs at a good price.
So, really, this column will address all things DVD.
It will also do its best to transcend the ambiguous one-paragraph reviews, found in most local publications and national magazines, which you read and find out halfway through that you forgot what it was talking about.
Disc-ussion by Austin Havican will attempt to utilize every resource and waking hour, even though his cat really needs to be fed, to understand all aspects of a product or process, and affectionately deliver to you something informative and desperately unfunny.
Luckily, a few major and minor production, packaging, and distribution companies have agreed to interviews and FAQ-type articles in an effort to provide further insight and clarification to the many unknowns of the DVD industry.
Also, readers should feel encouraged to contact their humble reviewer with any questions, tips, information, or worship they have. It only seems fair to address what readers want to know or want to share, so consider the email address discussion.dc@gmail.com to be a more accurate, and much more attractively youthful resource than Ask Jeeves.
So, if you want to know what the latest awful blockbuster was about, check another review. However, if you’re more inclined to tech specs and is-it-really-worth-my-money types of questions, eject your common DVD article and watch this one every Tuesday.
Just make sure you don’t fast-forward or you’ll miss the nudity (not guaranteed).
