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DVD-Video

DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in most of the world in the 2000s. As of 2024, it competes with the high-definition Blu-ray Disc, while both receive competition as delivery methods by streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and an MPEG-2 decoder (e.g., a DVD player, or a computer DVD drive with a software DVD player). Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats (often multi-channel formats as described below). Typically, the data rate for DVD movies ranges from 3 to 9.5 Mbit/s, and the bit rate is usually adaptive. DVD-Video was first available in Japan on October 19, 1996 (with major releases beginning December 20, 1996), followed by a release on March 24, 1997, in the United States.

The DVD-Video specification was created by the DVD Forum and was not publicly available. Certain information in the DVD Format Books is proprietary and confidential and Licensees and Subscribers were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The DVD-Video Format Book could be obtained from the DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation (DVD FLLC) for a fee of $5,000. FLLC announced in 2024 that "On December 31, 2024, the current DVD Format/Logo License ("License") will expire. On the same date, our Licensing program, which originally started from 2000, will be terminated. There will be no new License program available and thus no License renewal is required."

To record digital video, DVD-Video uses either H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 compression at up to 9.8 Mbit/s (9,800 kbit/s) or MPEG-1 Part 2 compression at up to 1.856 Mbit/s (1,856 kbit/s). DVD-Video supports video with a bit depth of 8 bits per color, encoded as YCbCr with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling.

The following formats are allowed for H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 video:

The following formats are allowed for MPEG-1 video:

The MPEG-1 Part 2 format does not support interlaced video. The H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 format supports both interlaced and progressive-scan content, and can handle different frame rates from the ones mentioned above by using pulldown. This is most commonly used to encode 23.976 frame/s content for playback at 29.97 frame/s. Pulldown can be implemented directly while the disc is mastered, by actually encoding the data on the disc at 29.97 frames/s; however, this practice is uncommon for most commercial film releases, which provide content optimized for display on progressive-scan television sets.[citation needed]

Alternatively, the content can be encoded on the disc itself at one of several alternative frame rates, and use flags that identify scanning type, field order and field repeating pattern. Such flags can be added in video stream by the H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 encoder. A DVD player uses these flags to convert progressive content into interlaced video in real time during playback, producing a signal suitable for interlaced TV sets. These flags also allow reproducing progressive content at their original, non-interlaced format when used with compatible DVD players and progressive-scan television sets.

The audio data on a DVD movie can be Dolby Digital (AC-3), DTS, PCM, or MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2) format. In countries using the PAL system standard DVD-Video releases must contain at least one audio track using the PCM, MP2, or AC-3 format, and all standard PAL players must support all three of these formats. A similar standard exists in countries using the NTSC system, though with no requirement mandating the use of or support for the MP2 format. DTS audio is optional for all players, as DTS was not part of the initial draft standard and was added later; thus, many early players are unable to play DTS audio tracks. Only PCM and DTS support 96 kHz sampling rate. Because PCM, being uncompressed, requires a lot of bandwidth and DTS is not universally supported by players, AC-3 is the most common digital audio format for DVDs, and 96 kHz is rare on a DVD. The official allowed formats for the audio tracks on a DVD-Video are:

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consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs
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