Throughout my lifetime, I have seen technology advance again and again. My first radio had an 8-track player in it – and now all I do is download MP3s. I remember being the first kid on my block with an Atari – and now I have a PlayStation 2 that allows me to play a game with people all over the world. And I remember buying videotapes of all of my favorite movies, until society discovered the next step in home entertainment – and what is now my new addiction – DVDs.

Commercially available for the first time in mainstream society in 1995, DVDs quickly became the future of home entertainment. Originally called the “Digital Versatile Disc,” a DVD can hold 4.7 gigabytes of information on one of its two sides, which is enough for a 133-minute movie. With one layer on each side, it can hold up to 17 gigabytes of video, audio, or other information – making it the perfect medium to replace the videotape, which had to be rewound and fast forwarded in order to reach the desired scene – something a DVD can do in seconds.

It’s no secret that the DVD craze has certainly caught on. According to data collected by the Consumer Electronics Association – more than 6.4 million DVD players were sold to consumers in the United States in the third quarter of 2003, a 36.5% increase over the same period in 2002. In addition, more than 73 million DVD players have been sold since the product’s commercial launch – bringing the number of DVD households to over 48 million – 34 percent of whom own more than one DVD player.

I have to say that I am now a complete DVD addict. Since I received the Alien Quadrilogy as a gift from Summer, I have become quite a junkie. I have purchased a few of my all-time favorite movies on DVD (Young Frankenstein, Half Baked and BASEketball just to name a few) and I have also added some cartoon favorites to my collection (Justice League, Batman and Challenge of the Superfriends). And to boot – some of my favorite TV shows are now part of my home DVD collection (Chapelle’s Show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and South Park).

What I love about DVDs so much is that they come with so many more extras then the videotape does. Never before in the history of home entertainment did we as consumers think that we would be able to purchase our favorite movie and get it with deleted scenes, bloopers, trailers, interviews, studio commentary, screen tests and even behind the scenes footage. But all that and more comes with every DVD. Take the Alien Quadrilogy that Summer was kind enough to get for me for instance. It comes with all four movies, in both the original theatrical release version as well as a special version unavailable before with special deleted and enhanced scenes. Plus, it has five additional discs including all I mentioned and more. You even get to see Sigourney Weaver test out for the role of Ripley – talk about taking you behind the scenes.

That is why I love DVDs so much. They take you into a movie in a way we never before imagined. They give us, the viewers, the opportunity to see things that were normally reserved only for those working on the movies. They allow us to enjoy scenes that would have remained on the “cutting room floor” if not for the extensive storage space on a DVD disc. And most importantly, DVDs allow us to preserve movies and TV shows that would have been lost to drying film, cracking VHS tapes – and forgotten memories – such as Soap, Gilligan’s Island and The Dukes of Hazzard – all of which are now available on DVD. Like an eclipsing moon, DVDs will soon replace the VCR and send it to the land of 8-track players and Betamax machines. And when that happens I will be the first to cheer – because I will have more room on my shelf for new DVDs.

God Bless technology.