The July 2000 cover of Which Hi-Fi? specialized in DVD players – and referred specifically to the plummeting prices of what had been super-premium video and audio devices.
I ran into this problem almost immediately after I started doing research for this month Back problems column. And, as is often the case with such things – life’s quirky coincidences are a disturbingly familiar phenomenon – it follows up pretty neatly on last month’s column. That one, a 1996 magazine, anticipated the first players of this amazing new technology – one that would bring digital convenience and (much better) quality to the home theater world via the then-ubiquitous analog VHS videotape.
Four short years later, as you’ll see in then-editor Andy Clough’s lead for the July 2000 issue above, we were amazed how we could find such high quality home theater for remarkably (relatively) low prices.
Now I realize that for quite a few of our readers, 23 years ago is a literal life; but for some of us, it’s just the blink of an eye. At the same time, it is sometimes very difficult to remember how different things were at the turn of the century.
(As an aside, I find it almost impossible to get my kids across that even used to be a time before the internet and smartphones, let alone trying to describe them what life was like back then: “What do you mean you had to remember phone numbers? And actually show up at an agreed time and place to meet your friends?! Insanity…”)
DVD player Supertest
While the internet was definitely a thing by then, remember, July 2000 was a time before the Apple iPod, before smartphones, before Bluetooth speakers, before wireless headphones.
And when it comes to video and home theater, the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) player was the very latest. I remember well the team of Which Hi-Fi? be amazed at the quality produced by Wharfedale’s pioneering DVD-750 player – all for a whopping £180. Our DVD player Supertest winner was the £450 Pioneer DV-626D; but the Wharfedale was a bright harbinger of home theater to come.
Still plenty of time for change
And it would be another six years before the next rung on the resolution ladder would come. By then, the world of home entertainment was a very different place. Blu-ray was introduced to the world in 2006, a few months before Apple introduced its first iPhone – and well into the life cycle of the ubiquitous iPod and MP3. People’s perception of what was possible in the field of home entertainment was certainly changing. Science fiction from a decade earlier became relatively commonplace.
And today, of course, Blu-ray (and even 4K Blu-ray) – exceptional as the format is – is in danger of becoming obsolete. It has also gone through the same process of price decline. While, as with all these things, you get what you pay for, you can get superb picture and sound quality from a Blu-ray player that costs less than £200.
Stay with the system
But even that won’t work for most people. We can get our 4K/ultra-high resolution video and much more advanced audio than just a decade ago, invisible, over the air and through our broadband cable. Compare the quality of the excellent DVD of a quarter of a century ago to what’s available now with no physical medium to worry about, and in fact your television itself, and there’s simply no competition.
While we at Which Hi-Fi? still believing you’ll get the very best, most consistent performance from a physical disc, the sheer ease of streaming – and at a relatively low cost if you keep your wits about you – is worth the very small reduction in quality for the majority of people. After all, it’s a decline most people aren’t even aware of, the 4K images we’re enjoying right now, like Disney+, Netflix, Amazon and the like, are so exceptional (depending on how stable your WiFi bandwidth and connection are ). is).
And who knows what’s to come? I’m fascinated to find out – if a little daunted by the possibilities. No doubt anyone who taps on a keyboard (or, more likely by then, just thinks their words on the screen) will have a small smile to themselves in a quarter of a century at the simplicity of the technology we currently have. to enjoy. I hope so.
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