DVD overview [removable storage media]

DVD has been proposed as a removable storage media for consumers and computers in the multimedia era. Computer applications have been expanding to include high quality moving picture applications using digital compression technology such as MPEG1 and MPEG2. Consumer products, such as CD-Audio, Video-CD etc., using digital technology have become widely used. Digital signal processing technology has become widespread over broadcasting, CATV and communication. This evolution has been supported by LSI based on progress in DRAM technology. These expansions of digital technology require large capacity storage media. Optical technology has been expected to be the most promising removable storage media for both consumer and computer environments. DVD has been proposed as a new large capacity optical storage media unifying ROM, RAM and -R disk systems combined with video and audio applications. DVD-Video also provides good interactive capability for multimedia application such as edutainment and entertainment.