DVD

Short for either Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc, DVD or DVD-ROM is a disc drive that allows for large amounts of data on one disc the size of a standard Compact Disc. DVD drives were first sold in 1997 and today are widely used for storing and viewing movies and other data. To play a DVD on a computer a user must have a DVD drive as well as a DVD player, which is a software program designed to play and control a DVD disc. The movie Twister became the first featured film put on DVD on March 25, 1996.

• Additional help and support with DVD drives can be found on our DVD help page.

Also see: Anamorphic, Blu-ray, CD definitions, DVD-R, EVD, HD DVD, SVCD, Letterbox, Movie, Optical disc, Regional codes, VideoCD