What Is Dvd - Philips JR12CDRWK/00 User Manual

2.9 What is DVD?

DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) is the new optical storage medium that combines an enormous
amount of digital storage capacity with the convenience of the well-known Compact Disc.
Pre-recorded DVDs may have a dat capacity from 4.7 up to 17.1 GB. In addition, most players will be
capable of playing Recordable/ReWritable DVDs with a storage capacity of 4.7 GB.
To give you an idea of what this means in practice: 4.7 GB is more than enough storage capacity for
more than 7 CD-ROMs, or four hours of digital video with a crystal-clear picture resolution including
several spoken languages and subtitle languages.
There are three main applications for DVDs:
1) Data on DVD
DVD data disc access works just like with any disk storage station in your computer. Just put a DVD
data disc in the DVD drive and you may browse through its content just like with any other drive in
your computer.
DVD data discs have the same functionality as CD-ROMs (except for their largely greater data
capacity of course). With the auto-start feature enabled for the DVD drive, a DVD data disc may
automatically start a program from the DVD itself, for example, a disc browser or a presentation.
2) Games on DVD
The popular game platforms like GameCube, Xbox and PlayStation2 use DVD discs for distributing
their games. These DVD Game discs will not play on DVD-R/RW/ROM drives. You will need specific
PC Game CDs or DVDs to be able play these games through a DVD-R/RW/ROM drive.
Sometimes a DVD Game discs may contain a DVD Video part with trailers or music or clips that can
be played through the DVD Video player functionality of the drive (see below).
3) Video on DVD
The most popular application of DVD-ROM drives is playing pre-recorded DVD-Video on your
computer monitor.
For this you will need software in the form of a DVD Player program like the one you may install from
the installation CD: PowerDVD. (If you want to know how to use PowerDVD, please read in the
document "How to use the software with this drive?" the chapter on "How to play a DVD-Video or a
Video CD on my computer?".
The DVD Player program you have installed on your computer will display the DVD menu that is
present on the DVD-Video. This menu gives you full control over the disc options and works just the
same as if the disc would be played on a Home Cinema DVD Player.
Always use the Help file - and other documentation delivered with the DVD Player program - for
information on program settings and optimizing the player for your system. Also, read your computer