This holiday season, many people will be looking to buy Digital Video Disc players for their loved ones. But are they really better than VCRs?

Iacovos Zachariades, systems support specialist for the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, said the answer is a resounding “yes.”

He said DVD has many advantages over traditional video.

“You get a much better quality image and sound with DVD than you do with video,” Zachariades said.

Zachariades attributes part of this to the durability of DVDs. He said after time, VHS tapes can wear down and degrade to the point where the quality of the video suffers.

“Although DVDs will wear down a little, it is at a much slower rate … than video tapes,” Zachariades said.

He said another advantage of DVD is “the DVD drives will not ‘eat’ the discs like VCRs can ‘eat’ tapes.”

The major reason for the better quality is the digital technology, Zachariades said.

“It works much the same way that CD-ROMs work, in that a laser reads the disk and searches for hills and valleys where the information is stored,” Zachariades said.

The player then takes this information and converts it into sound and images, he said.

Another advantage of DVDs is the vast amount of storage space they offer. DVDs can hold more information than video tapes without sacrificing quality, Zachariades said.

DVDs currently can hold 4.7 gigabytes of information or more than two hours of video for a single layered disc, called DVD-5, or 8.5 GB and 4 hours for a double layered disc, called DVD-9.

Future discs will be able to hold as much as 20 GB and more than eight hours of video, Zachariades said.

He said DVDs offer several other unique features.

“Some allow you to play compact discs, and others allow you to record on DVDs, although they are rather expensive,” he said.

Casey Gigler, junior in management information systems, agreed with Zachariades that DVDs offer more features than video tapes.

“One nice feature they have is chapter selection,” Gigler said. “They are broken down into chapters so that if you have a favorite scene, you can skip instantly to it, without having to go through the whole movie.”

Gigler said he decided to buy a DVD player when he saw them displayed at stores.

“The quality of sound and video was much better than I had seen from video,” he said.

Gigler added that being able to receive quality surround sound without having to buy a lot of expensive equipment was another reason he bought a DVD player.

A feature in the works for DVD players is pay-per-view.

“Some companies will be offering pay-per-view movies you can order and play on your DVD player, similar to the pay-per-view currently offered through cable companies and satellite companies, but they will be in DVD quality,” Zachariades said.