Alan Smithee

March 1997 was when the first DVD movies started appearing in stores. The very first ones were some Imax movies from Lumivision; Warner and MGM were test-marketing their first titles in only a few cities (I had a chance to buy some in the bay area, have been kicking myself ever since then for not doing so. At the time I was resentful of DVD for killing off laserdisc- I thought there was no chance of digital video ever looking as good as that, and figured DVD would still be a mess of compression only slightly better than Video CD.) There were a few players in stores several weeks before any actual discs were available, they played demo discs like this one:

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Here's a website an early fan of DVD put up, he gave up on it a couple months before they came out because he was getting frustrated with the delays:

http://www.wiseacres.com/dvd.htm

After being assured by a fellow diehard laserdisc fan that DVD was actually good, I relented in 1998 and bought a Pioneer combo laserdisc/DVD player. I bought a 5.1 sound system right away, but didn't get a widescreen TV until 2010. I don't have too many of the original launch titles, except for a few Polygram discs in the much-hated Laserfile "Scratch-O-Matic" cases.

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What was the very first DVDTalk post?

mike7162

I was skeptical of the new format as well, and I remember my friends thinking that LD was the apex of home video and that DVD would be a step backward! After finally relenting, my first DVD (1998) was Lifeforce (which, ironically, was virtually identical PQ wise to my laserdisc copy IMO!);once the magic kicked I was hooked, and 2600 titles later, I don't regret a single purchase!

RoadToPerdition

Hard to believe DVD's been around for more than half of my life.

I remember my first purchases: A co-worker at Blockbuster took me to BJ's Wholesale Club because they had good prices on DVDs and I got Deep Blue Sea and Creepshow for I think $19.99 each.

Norm de Plume

Oh, and I remember when it was still in diapers. How quickly they grow up.

Regulus

I got my first DVDs as Birthday Presants in 2002 (Spiderman 2 and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones were the first Movies I received) In December of that year A&E's Thunderbirds "Megaset" was the first TV Series I procured. Little did I know then that within four years these disks would totally affect how I would watch TV.

Ash Ketchum

It would be interesting to hear when people here bought their first DVD player and what DVD they first bought.

I bought a DVD of Tsui Hark's ZU WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (for $12.50!) on Jan. 28, 2001, three days before buying my first DVD player, a Pioneer KV-102, code-free, at a Chinatown electronics store for $400. It still works and I still use it. When I bought the player, I bought two more DVDs, Sammo Hung's MILLIONAIRES' EXPRESS and Yuen Wo Ping's IRON MONKEY. In fact, it was the easy availability of Hong Kong classics at low prices on DVD that convinced me to buy a DVD player. That and the fact that anime DVDs were starting to contain both the English dub and Japanese language tracks and the anime distributors wanted to send me review copies on DVD.

The Lizard King

Toshiba SD-1700 for $130 and Gladiator for $25. Both purchased at Best Buy.

TLK

BobO'Link

My first DVD player was my computer. I custom built a gaming system in '99 and made sure to include a DVD drive so I could both watch movies and be able to take advantage of what I felt would be applications distributed via DVD. The movie part worked but it was much later before DVD distribution of software became common, long after I replaced that system. The first DVD I purchased was Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition when it originally came out for around $25 (used a coupon on a sale). I first watched it on my computer (19" screen - a monster on computers in those days). The 2nd DVD I purchased was Batman - The Movie (1966). I'd gone to WM saw a copy for $5 so I got it since I like the film and thought I'd never see it that cheap again. I just knew it was on clearance since it was selling for so little! It was a couple of years and many DVDs later before I purchased my first stand alone DVD player, but I'd been watching on the TV for a while as the video card had both S-Video and composite video output capabilities so I ran A/V cables from the computer to the TV.

ernestrp

I bought a computer with a Dvd drive in late 98 or early 99. The first Dvd I bought was Carrie and it would not play with the Dvd player supplied with the computer. I was furious and called the place up where I bought the computer at and left a rather terse message to them. I ended up with a Reelmagic card for my computer, so I guess that would be my first dvd player.

tommyp007

The Matrix and an RCA bluray player, but I can't remember what year.

yoshimi

Not sure when I bought my first player but I know I bought Taxi Driver with it.

wishbone

The first DVD player I purchased was an Apex model but it did not have the secret menu screen. The first DVDs I purchased were This is Spinal Tap! and Austin Powers:  The Spy Who Shagged Me. Player and DVDs were purchased in 2000.

The Apex player died at some point in 2002 so I bought a Sony player in time for the release of the theatrical DVD for The Lord of the Rings:  The Fellowship of the Ring. I moved it to my computer desk last Christmas when I got a Sony Blu-ray player. It's been a fine DVD player.

Like cassette tapes back in the day I didn't buy many movies on VHS due to the eventual wear when the tape was played. Laser discs were a bit beyond my reach so when DVD took off I started building my movie collection... and I guess I never looked back.

Gobear

I saw my first DVD in Seoul, South Korea in 1998. I was at the Golden Helmet bar where they played American movies on Sundays. The owner had just bought a DVD player and we watched Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. I found myself hypnotized by the menu.

When I moved back to the States, I bought my first player, a Panasonic, in July of 2000. I bought 2 DVDs with my machine: True Stories and Pink Floyd: The Wall.

mike07

My first player was a 19" Emerson TV/DVD/VCR combo back in the year 2000. Bought it when my favorite B&M video store (back when there were 3 B&M stores within a 6 block radius of my house) started renting DVDs. First DVD bought was a few years later, a start to my still growing movie collection, "K-9: P.I." Unfortunately, that TV has been long gone but I still own the DVD.

MLBFan24

I got my first dvd player in 2000 (Philips model) and got "The Rock" movie - my favorite movie.

Gizmo

First BD player was in '99 Apex 600a from Circuit City. Region Free and big as fuck.

Picked up several of the South Park 'Best of' DVDs, sex and the City and a few other random DVD titles.

Funny thing is, the Apex still runs while a few BD players I have don't.

EdTheRipper

First player was an Apex purchased for $60 from Circuit City back on October 18th, 2002. That same day I picked up Jason X, Changing Lanes, Insomnia, National Lampoon's Van Wilder and Scream. After that, I was off and running.

That Apex player actually made it all the way up until 2011 before finally shitting the bed. It outlasted a lot of other players I'd gotten as secondaries over the years.

Chad

My first DVD purchase was Tomorrow Never Dies SE with the silver case in December 1998:



Picked up my first player the same day and that was a Philips Magnavox DVD420AT.

TomOpus

I was one of those that got into laserdiscs so it took a little while for me to jump on the DVD bandwagon. My first group of DVDs were bought in 1998 when I was with an ex-g/f so when we split, I let her keep all those and I don't have them listed anymore. When I look at DVDProfiler it lists my first one as Terminator 2 Ultimate in the metal case (not to be confused with the Extreme version with the case-ripping metal case).

Alan Smithee

What a bunch of late-comers! I bought Daylight at the same time I bought my player since the store had a very small selection of movies and this had a great sound track. Other first discs included Boogie Nights (was blown away that a 2 1/2 hour movie could be shown without interruption, on laserdisc you'd have to switch discs during the last hour!) The Wedding Singer (blown away that I could buy a movie released just that week for $19.99, you were lucky if you could find any recent movie on laserdisc for under $30!) and the first 3 South Park discs, which was the kind of thing I'd always wished they'd release on laserdisc but hardly anything like that was. And these were just the beginning.

I never got any of the early Universal discs in jewel cases, but I later got Sony's The Craft and The Fan in jewel case packaging on clearance, also grabbed Polygram's first releases of Fargo and Four Weddings and a Funeral on clearance just to have some of the first DVDs.

Remembered the excitement whenever a new studio started releasing DVDs- after I'd jumped in Paramount and Fox were still not releasing DVDs, then the next month they were exclusively releasing movies on DIVX. Paramount finally started releasing DVDs soon after (and eventually they'd flood the market with titles only to take many of them out of print after a few years!) Fox was the last major studio to join in, and there was a chorus of disapproval when their first titles included 4x3 letterbox discs with zero extras of Hope Floats and Home Alone 3 list priced at $34.99, keeping with their tradition of having among the highest-priced laserdiscs. (Even though I didn't get a widescreen TV until 2010, one of my friends had an early widescreen TV and I immediately learned to avoid DVDs that were not "16x9 enhanced"!)

One of the early threats of DVD was that 4x3 pan and scan would be the prevalent format for movies, and although there were a few close calls that didn't really happen. The worst was when studios started issuing separate "fullscreen" discs (Patch Adams was the first title to do this), most of which are now out of print. There was also the threat that new movies would be priced for rental the same as VHS, which meant they'd have a list price of around $90. Luckily that never happened either, even after movies stopped being released on VHS altogether.

For a long time the Holy Grail of DVD was Star Wars- of course when that finally happened, it didn't turn out too well.

Alan Smithee

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DonnachaOne

Our first was a $250 Sony my brother bought for us. I worked at a Hollywood Video, and I got to borrow DVDs all the time; the very first DVD I actually bought was The Princess Bride.

Roybq

I can't remember my first DVD player except for the fact that I bought it Christmas of 97 and paid $500+ for it. I live in one of the "test" cities so it was pretty cool for myself to be one of the first adopters. My first disc was "Twister" and it was a treat to no longer have to flip the disc over to watch the movie. I remember flipper DVDs like "Goodfellas" but I don't think I actually purchased one. My family is amazed that I have such a huge collection of movies, but when you buy a few a month over 14 years, they tend to add up.

Alan Smithee

I avoided any movies you had to flip over, since dual-layer discs were already out by the time I got my player (first RSDL disc was Terminator 2; I think flipper movies included Seven, Goodfellas, A Time To Kill, Stargate, Sleepers, The Color Purple, Woodstock and Dawn of the Dead.)

Alan Smithee

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