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The WMS video "Grandpa Worked on the Railroad," originally duplicated in VHS format, is now available in DVD.
Even reduced by 50% and compressed for the Web, these two images still show markedly different quality. (Images are unretouched.)
A major consumer electronics store announced this month that it will no longer carry VHS tape. This signals another nail in the VHS coffin that many media observers have seen coming (and cheered for!): The frustrating, poor-quality VHS is waning in the wake of the much higher-quality DVD.

DVD boasts sharper, cleaner, and more realistic video and much better sound. DVD has twice the resolution of VHS and performance is better than VHS.

This spells really good news for those whose product or service must project the very highest standards. An analogy from the print medium is that it's like going from dull, rough paper to smooth, glossy paper to make images really "pop" and showcase the content.

And the benefits of DVD don't end there. Think of DVD as an electronic magazine. Because of its random access capability, your audience can pick and choose what to view from up to eight hours of content. A DVD's menu is very much like a magazine's table of contents. No longer must viewers watch a complete video end-to-end to access what they're most interested in. Subtitles, turned on or off and in different languages, are another great benefit of DVD.

Many companies are taking advantage of these superior benefits. Existing content previously developed can have new life adapted into the new DVD medium. How? Laptops these days are manufactured with a DVD drive built-in. So viewers can watch your high-quality program virtually anywhere!

 
DVD
VHS

480+ lines of resolution

240 lines of resolution
220 lines of color information per horizontal line 40 lines of color information per horizontal line
No rewind "Be kind, rewind"
Up to 8 sound tracks and 8 audio channels on every track Inferior audio
Up to 32 subtitles that can be turned on or off Only one subtitle that cannot be turned off
No wear-and-tear Eventually wears out
Duplication usually costs less Duplication usually costs more
Comparison at
100% size (unretouched)
Menu screen from the "Grandpa" video