When were DVDs invented?

Answer 1

CDs were invented by Sony/Phillips in the late 1980s.

The DVD evolved from the CD. It is a high-density CD.

So the answer would be 1993. DVDs were invented in the early 1990s (1993 is the answer shown on two different websites as a third said 1996), but they did not become popular until around the turn of the millennium. Until around 2001, people mostly still rented videocassettes.

Their predecessor, laserdiscs, were available in the early 1990s (although they were very expensive and almost nobody had them), but they quickly became obsolete when the DVD was invented. Laserdiscs were like a hybrid of a vinyl record and a DVD: they were huge -- like 14 inch-wide -- DVDs with a big hole in the middle. Educational films were sometimes shown on them. Laserdisc players were basically just like DVD players- but much bigger. The date of 'early 1990s' is the best to quote. DVDs came on the market in the UK about 1999. A presentation was given about 'a new video medium' (which turned out to be DVD) in early 1998.

The LaserDisc also used an analog recording technique (like the early audio CDs), while the DVD uses a digital recording technique with error correction (like modern CDs).

Answer 2

DVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc, is an optical disc storage media format, and was invented and developed by Sony, and Philips in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage. DVDs are of the same dimensions as compact discs (CDs), but store more than six times as much data.

Variations of the term DVD often indicate the way data is stored on the discs: DVD-ROM (read only memory) has data that can only be read and not written; DVD-R and DVD+R (recordable) can record data only once, and then function as a DVD-ROM; DVD-RW (re-writable), DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM (random access memory) can all record and erase data multiple times. The wavelength used by standard DVD lasers is 650 nm. Thus, the light has a red color.

DVD-Video and DVD-Audio discs refer to properly formatted and structured video and audio content, respectively. Other types of DVDs, including those with video content, may be referred to as DVD Data discs.