To begin with, DVDs (digital video discs, or something like that) look a lot like CDs, but are encoded to hold way more information than a CD can hold. I'm not sure of the exact specs, but I've seen a single side of a DVD hold up to about 4 hours of video. DVDs can come one-sided or double-sided (usually to offer both letterbox and pan-and-scan formats). Your average one disc DVD player is a little larger than a VCR, has a digital readout, and typically has a jack for headphones in the front. The player is controlled by a unique remote, which in addition to the typical buttons a VCR remote features, has a number of other buttons (including subtitle, freeze frame, audio, and many others I still haven't figured out). The most important set of buttons is a four-way "cursor" set with a enter button. These are used to navigate the various menus on the DVD.

DVDs have incredibly sharp images (if you pause the screen, you will get a perfect, unblurry picture) and terrific sound. I have mine hooked up to a surround-sound system, and the sound experience is second to none. You can set the sound from 2 to 6 channels with the "audio" button. The opening half-hour of Saving Private Ryan sounded just as good as a digital sound movie theater - just like I was in the middle of all the gunfire and noise. The days of fast-forwarding and rewinding are long gone. You can advance or rewind the movie from 2X speed to 30X. Also, DVD movies are separated into "chapters", so you can instantly go to your favorite scene in the movie. Do you prefer widescreen (letterbox) format - the way it was shown in the theater? Most DVDs feature this format; some offer both widescreen and fullscreen (pan-and-scan, the way most VHS tapes show films).

A nifty little additon, at least in my DVD player (a Philips Magnavox) is an automatic screensaver. If I pause the film, after about five minutes the screensaver kicks in until the next time I come back. Very nice.

Yet, so far I've only brushed the surface of why DVDs are so incredible. For a movie buff, DVDs are nothing short of every wish list packaged into one idea. DVDs are not just films - they're film experiences. The real jewel of DVDs is "extras". These are various features, like deleted scenes and documentaries, that open the film to new dimensions even for someone who has seen that movie dozens of times over. Now, the tricky part is knowing what DVDs offer enough extras to make the purchase worthwhile. While there are some DVDs that are stocked to the brim with extras, there are a lot of them out there that offer nothing more than the movie in various languages (but more on this later).

When you pop in a DVD, a main menu (often connected to other submenus) appears. Fancy DVDs will have animated menus that move, morph, and look like the film. The Alien DVD menu moves you through various parts of the Nostromo as you advance through menus; the Dark City DVD has menus that morph into each other; Wedding Singer moves around inside a wedding chapel and has people dancing in the background. Menus are easy to navigate and select. At any time in the DVD you can return to the main menu by pressing the "menu" button on the remote.

There are many types of extras that I will attempt to classify here. Most DVDs list their extras on the back; also, keep a lookout for DVDs with any of these in the title: "premiere collection", "signature collection", "platinum series" (New Line), "criterion collection", "collector's edition", and "special edition". These often have a lot of the extras you're looking for. So far, New Line's Platinum Series and the rare Criterion Collection DVDs are the best in extras I've ever seen. Extras include:

• Language/Subtitle Selection: Want to see a film in Spanish? Subtitled in French? Well, you'd be strange, but most DVDs offer multiple languages or subtitles (including English) for our foreign friends. So far, I've never seen a Canadian version (eh?), but we're hoping.
• Scene Selection: If you don't want to go hunting around for that exact scene you should be watching, you can go to the scene selection menu to figure out what chapter to go to. Some scene selection menus have tiny TVs that show you up to six chapters playing - without sound, of course.
• Theatrical Trailers: Now we're getting to the good stuff. Trailers, teasers, and TV spots are all great extras, particularly if you like to get hyped up on the movie right before you see it. Some DVDs will offer trailers of other films as well. The Aliens Special Edition has trailers for all four Alien movies; so does Lethal Weapon 4; Austin Powers has trailers for other New Line films; Ghostbusters has trailers for a number of Harold Ramis/Bill Murray flicks.
• Cast and Crew bios: While not the most interesting set of extras, these are nearly standard on most DVDs. You can read up on the cast and crew, including their biography and filmography. A few films will have trailers or other easter eggs hidden in these bios, which is the only incentive I have for looking through them.
• Interviews: Not many DVDs have these, but interviews with the cast and crew are pretty cool to watch (the only DVDs I have featuring this is Lethal Weapon 4 and Aliens).
• Deleted Scenes/Director's Cut: This is the meat of extras - scenes deleted from the theatrical version of the film. A couple DVDs have a "director's cut" of the films, where the movie is remixed to include these lost scenes. I highly recommend Austin Powers 2 when it comes to lost scenes - there's a good 20 minutes here, most of which are hilarious. The Aliens Special Edition has 17 minutes of additional footage that is remixed right into the film, kicking it up to a whopping 154 minute run (if you haven't caught on yet, Aliens is Justin's all time favorite film).
• Storyboards: These can be rather interesting, particularly if the DVD has an option to show various scenes with the storyboard on the screen as well.
• Art work/Production Photos/Posters: Falling into the category of still images, these can be rather interesting, particularly if you want to see the evolution of various ideas for a film. These can be viewed like a clickable slide show.
• Documentaries: Mostly "The Making Of" or "Behind The Scenes Of" documentaries, some made particularly for TV publicity. As with anything, I've seen some that are terrifically boring and some that are horribly interesting. Occasionally, a DVD will have a documentary on the subject that the film deals with; Saving Private Ryan has a 30 minute documentary on the D-Day invasion, and how the film portrayed it.
• Commentaries: I get the feeling that some people might have no tolerance for commentaries, but a real film buff will find them indispensable. Commentaries have one or more people involved with the film (the director, writers, actors) talking over the film (which is mostly muted), relating stories about the movie and pointing out various bits of trivia. I find it best to tack on the english subtitles while listening to a commentary, so I can follow along with the dialog if the commentary gets boring. Some commentaries have become pretty innovative: the Mallrats DVD has an option to see the commentators talking in a smaller picture-in-picture or just to hear the voices. Again, you'll get a mixed bag when it comes to commentaries: good, bad, or just okay. The best commentary I heard was the one in Ghostbusters, the worst was the director of Starship Troopers (whose accent was so bad he called bugs "bergs"). A few DVDs will have more than one commentary that you can choose from. If you like commentaries, these can extend the replay value of the movie considerably.
• Music Videos: We all like these, no? If a film features a song that's been made into a music video featuring the film, chances are it'll be on the DVD. Austin Powers 2 has a whopping 3 music videos; Mallrats has perhaps the funniest.
• Games: The few DVDs that have had interactive games (via the remote) have been rather disappointing, but they do exist.

Many computers now have DVD-ROM drives that allow you to play the movie on your computer (a boon if you have a laptop with this on vacations). But DVD-ROMS also unlock a number of other extras that can be accessed only on your computer. These include:

• Web Sites: They can either fit the entire official web site of a film on the DVD, or link you up via internet.
• Screensavers/Desktop Themes/Wallpaper: Featuring the film
• Games/Programs: Not having a DVD-ROM on my computer, I don't know how good any of these are, but they might be cool to try.

So are you convinced? Ah, DVDs, they are so very nice. The price of most DVDs are comparable to VHS new releases: typical prices range from $17 to $25, but I've found them as low as $10 and as high as $40 (rare special editions, such as the 2-DVD Army of Darkness Collector's Edition, tend to be a little pricey). One of the other neat things about the DVD revolution is that many films that have been out of print are being reissued in the DVD format. I'm still waiting for the PCU DVD, but it's only a matter of time... I mean, you can now get the entire Evil Dead trilogy on DVD, whereas a year or two ago the first two movies were nearly unavailable (and now Army of Darkness has THREE different DVD versions).

If you need a list of selections on what DVDs to get, check out the MUTANT vol 3 issue 2 for my 10 favorite DVD choices.