DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America,[5] Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-ray Disc; both receive competition as delivery methods by streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+.

Certain information in the DVD Format Books is proprietary and confidential and Licensees and Subscribers were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

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.

These flags also allow reproducing progressive content at their original, non-interlaced format when used with compatible DVD players and progressive-scan television sets.

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.

Encoding at less than the max bitrate (like this) is typically done to allow greater compatibility among players,[20] and to help prevent buffer underruns in the case of dirty or scratched discs.

In October 2001, aiming to improve picture quality over standard editions, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment offered "Superbit"—a premium line of DVD-Video titles having average bitrates closer to 6 Mbit/s.

Multiple languages, angles, and extra audio tracks were eliminated to free up more space for the main title and thereby to ensure the highest data rate possible.

Data structures recorded on a DVD-compliant disc are components of one of the four data groups called domains:[29][30][31][32] Video, audio, subtitle and navigation streams are multiplexed and stored on a DVD-Video disc in the VOB container format (Video Object).

[36] DVD+VR standard defines a logical format for DVD-Video compliant recording on optical discs and is commonly used on DVD+R/RW media.

Multiple angles have found a niche in markets such as yoga, erotica, animation (e. g. for storyboards), and live performances.

Deleted scenes and alternative endings allow the audience to view additional content which was not included in a theatrical release.

Other extras that can be included on DVDs are motion menus, still pictures, up to 32 selectable subtitles, seamless branching for multiple storylines, up to 9 camera angles, and DVD-ROM / data files that can be accessed on a computer.

Lower data rate may decrease visual and sound quality, which manifests itself in various compression artifacts.

Many DVD-Video titles use Content Scramble System (CSS) encryption, which is intended to discourage people from copying the disc.

Usually, users need to install software provided on the DVD or downloaded from the Internet such as MPlayer, TotalMedia Theatre, PowerDVD, VLC or WinDVD to be able to view the disc in a computer system.

This has led to long-running legal battles and the arrest of some of those involved in creating or distributing the DeCSS code,[41][42] through the use of the controversial U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), on the grounds that such software could also be used to facilitate unauthorized copying of the data on the discs.

These approaches, which are not part of the official DVD-Video specification, include Sony ARccOS Protection, Macrovision RipGuard, X-protect, ProtectDisc SecureBurn, Anaho,[43] Fortium, and others.

[citation needed] DVD-Video allows the disc to specify whether or not the user may perform any operation, such as selecting a menu, skipping chapters, forwarding or rewinding – essentially any function on the remote control.

Most DVD players respect these commands (e. g., by preventing skipping or fast-forwarding through a copyright message or an advertisement at the beginning of a disc).

However, grey market players ignore UOPs and some DVD "re-authoring" software packages allow the user to produce a copy without these restrictions.

Each DVD-Video disc contains one or more region codes, denoting the area(s) of the world in which distribution and playback are intended.

Regional coding kept the European DVD unplayable for most North American consumers, thereby ensuring that ticket sales would be relatively unaffected.

[44] A huge percentage of players outside of North America can be easily modified (and are even sold pre-modified by e-commerce websites) to ignore the regional codes on a disc.

This, coupled with the fact that almost all televisions in Europe and Australasia are capable of displaying NTSC video (at the very least, in black and white), means that consumers in these regions have a huge choice of discs.

Contrary to popular belief, this practice is not illegal and in some countries that strongly support free trade it is encouraged.

By forgoing Dolby standards, manufacturers cut costs considerably; encoding in lower bit-rates also allows a TV series to be squeezed onto fewer discs.

Modern DVD recorders often support additional disc and file formats, including DVD+/-R/RW, CD-R/RW, MP3, WMA, SVCD, JPEG, PNG, SVG, KAR and MPEG-4 (DivX/Xvid).

In February 2008, Toshiba capitulated, citing low demand for HD DVD and the faster growth of Blu-ray, and the inclusion of the format in the video game system PlayStation 3 (PS3), among other reasons.

[52] In addition, a growing number of hardware vendors are enhancing their Blu-ray players with Internet connectivity for subscription-based video downloads.