Digital exposure Analysis/Commentary While you were busy upgrading your PC to Windows 95 or 98, all those television and film folks, smarting from the interest generated by home computers, decided to make a comeback. They went digital. This Christmas, Digital Video Disc (DVD) players and Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) will make their appearance under many a Christmas tree. Both are the digital equivalent of the advanced VCR. (In case, like me, you're swimming in acronym soup, VCR still stands for Video Cassette Recorder.) These newfangled appliances hook up to your TV set via DVD input holes and transform your TV into Cinderella. Digital video players play back pre-recorded movies on special disks, called DVD ROMs, and PVRs allow you to record television programs digitally, stop and pause the video, and store upwards to 20 hours of crisp digital-quality shows. Like all nascent technologies, the new digital media require some adjustments. For one, they are mostly controlled via remote control, so, as Consumer Reports suggests, make sure the remote configuration is simple and intuitive. For another, designers have built in features, invisible to the viewer, that protect them against viewers that would casually abuse copyright protection. DVD ROMs usually trigger encryption protocols in DVD players that block any attempt to copy disks. This is especially true for the DVD-ROM drives in new computers. New computers contain DVD drives that accommodate CD-ROM disks as well as DVDs. You can play Madonna on the same PC that you might use to watch the latest movie. State-of-the-art movies are particularly attuned to the features of personal computers, their ability to crunch digital information, and their dual speakers for stereo sound. There remain hidden frustrations, however. The digital industry has developed a piracy paranoia that compels it to lock DVD CDs into media distributed for specific regions. This means that you can't import a DVD from Europe or Japan, the DVD imports will be flagged by a code in your computer drive or your DVD player that says "Uh-uh, you can't play that here." Digital designers have created six "disk locked" regions to attempt to avoid pre-empting releases to movie theaters. (Movies released on DVD in the U.S. might still be in distribution to theaters in another region.) DVDs in PCs are likely to catch on first, then DVD players, and later still PVRs. Already the price of all three devices is dipping. A good DVD player compares in price to a good VCR. You also have to consider that the promised High Definition TV (HDTV) may not be compatible with the digital prototypes of the early 2000s. Current shoppers may be repeating the mistake made by the buyers of Beta players, buying into a market that may soon eclipse. At any rate, digital progress is still progress and the motion toward the conversion of media in digital form bodes well from the appearance of these goodies on the market. If it's smaller than a breadbox, produces high-quality video and sound, the new digital toy under your Christmas tree this year may yet bring you a memorable holiday. December 1, 1999