The New York Times has an article on the emergence of DVDs in the past five years. I got my DVD player a little over 2 1/2 years ago (DON'T BUY RCA) for one simple reason -- widescreen.

I've hated for years that filmmakers were forced, for some bizarre reason, to produce the "pan & scan" versions of films on VHS tapes (i.e. "This movie has been formatted to fit your TV"). The most annoying one that I can think of is the VHS version of the Sylvester Stallone movie "Victory." There's a scene in the movie where some guys are coming off of a truck. In the picture you can see the back of the truck and there's Michael Caine saying "Hi, I'm Colby. I'm the coach." Each time after he says that you can hear (but not see, because it's been cut off) Stallone saying "I'm Hatch. I'm the trainer."

Like I said -- annoying.