From Analog Box to Digital Circle

Bringing a selection of movies to the classroom was accomplished by using VHS (video home system) tapes which appeared on the market in the late 1970s. Teachers no longer had to fret over the task of winding spools of lengthy tape onto a projector to show a film on the screen. VHS held the tape within one small box that could be put into a machine that projected the image onto a television screen. Tapes initially had a capacity of 3.5 hours which was adequate for a full length movie.

As the digital age progressed, so did the ability to show movies. The DVD (digital video disc) was created and by 2006 VHS quietly became obsolete. Schools, often slow at integrating new technology, began using DVDs in the computer DVD trays to view movies on their computer monitors and in machines that projected images onto a computer screen. The DVDs' greatest disadvantage is that they are easily scratched or develop hairline cracks. In the hands of school-age children, it would prove disastrous. DVDs also have shorter recording time of 6 hours compared to the VHS of 12 hours (T-240). Because they are digital, they are also susceptible to macroblocking where square areas annoyingly do not show a correct image.

However, its small size makes the DVD convenient to handle and store in large quantities which is needed in a classroom and the discs are inexpensive to purchase. Since many schools have computer labs where students are seated at individual computers, each student may have access to their own DVD to watch movies or store information.

Society embraced this technology because of the benefits of its low cost and its compactness, but there are problems and challenges still associated with it in addition to those mentioned above. One of those problems is that the protocols for DVDs used in the United States and Canada differ from those used in other parts (regions) of the world, so future universality of DVDs would be appreciated.

Although blue-ray discs are an emerging technology, it will take considerable time before they are adapted to the classroom due to the expense of converting from DVD usage to yet another form of a similar technology. What would make this technology even better is creation of a smaller, unbreakable, unscratchable disc that has greater capacity and can sitll be used in clasroom computers without changing delivery methods.

Links: http://didyouknow.org/dvdhistory; http://e-articles.info/e/a/title/DVD-History; http://www.burnworld.com/dvd/primer/history-of-videotape.htm