The President's Message

Bruce Nazarian, MPSE
DVDA President

(Actually, there will be many new Chapters beginning and restarting, but that is story I will tell a little bit later on).

First, I'd like to welcome you to the next chapter in the continuing story of the DVDA, and congratulate the new officers and directors of the DVD Association.

My first President's message would be incomplete if it did not include sincere thanks from the DVDA to our immediate Past President Bernie Mitchell.  Bernie has presided over the DVD Association since 2004,  and can justifiably be proud of the progress the association has made since then. As evidence of that, Bernie was inducted this past June into the DVDA Hall of Fame, a recognition he richly deserved. This year's inductees also included Paul Holmes, the "father" of the DVDA who began the Association so many years ago, and Dr. Victor McCrary, who presided over the period of the DVDA's transition from an Association to the non-profit corporation we have become. The current years' Inductees will soon be listed in the DVDA Hall of Fame area. Our association also owes much to the Executive Directors  who have come before, including Ralph LaBarge, and Michelle Serra.

I would also like to thank some retiring DVDA Directors for their service: Morris Ballen, Julia Bassett, Richard French, and Geoffrey Tully are all Directors who were there "at the beginning" and have served the DVDA well in the ensuing years.  We thank each of them for their many contributions to the DVDA, and wish them well in their new endeavors.

Which brings us to, as they say,  "the rest of the story"!  

I originally became a part of the DVD Association in 2000,  when I was asked to join the DVDA Advisory Board. I enjoyed wIorking closely with Michelle Serra, the DVDA Executive Director at the time, on DVD training intiatives. In 2001, I was thrilled when Gnome Digital Media, my DVD authoring company, was selected to be the recipient of two DVDA Excellence Awards . The DVDA has meant a lot to me since 2000, as a continuing Corporate Member, as a member of the Board of Directors, to which I was elected in 2005, and as Webmaster and Vice-President since 2006.

Since the early days of the DVD format, there has been tremendous growth in the optical disk industry, and the DVD format has led the way, with the DVDA championing its growth all along. By the end of 2006, an astounding 7.2 billion DVDs and over 195 Million DVD Set-top Players had been manufactured and shipped. By all accounts, DVD has been, and continues to be, one of the most successful entertainment formats ever launched.  DVD has taken its rightful place in the mainstream of video publishing and communication formats, and is now casually used by millions of people every day,  without a second thought.  

Not a bad success story for format that didn't even exist ten years ago!

I'm excited to have been part of the DVD Association during that time of incredible growth of the DVD format,  and happy that along the way the DVD Association has been able to provide information to help promote the format, and encourage its use.

Remarkably, DVD still seems to be one of the more confusing formats to author. The addition of the Next  Generation formats HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc in last few years have added two new areas of expertise that need to be added into the bag of tricks of successful DVD authors, along with the requirement to learn not one, but two different programming languages to harness the unique interactivity available in both formats.

The Chinese say, "may you live in interesting times", and these are those interesting times for content creators and DVD authors alike...  in fact, it is a scenario nearly identical to ten years ago, when the DVD format first hit the radar! Back then, the need fufilled by the DVDA was to disseminate information about these shiny discs, and how to make them behave.

The renewed mission of the DVD going forward will be to once again take the vanguard in explaining, instructing, promoting,  and "demystifying"  all of these unique optical disc formats that can be easily harnessed, once understood.

We will continue to recognize and reward excellence in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc production through our DVDA Excellence Awards,  the longest-running peer-judged optical disc awards in history.  In addition,  the DVDA will aggressively expand its outreach to both professional and desktop DVD authors alike, through innovative new programs that we will launch beginning in January 2008.

We will continue to publish DVD-related information on our website, www.DVDA.org, which has been growing by leaps and bounds since its complete overhaul and relaunch in January, 2006! We will also resume publishing of 'Wavelength", the DVDA publication we began in 2004, and you will see some interesting in-print collaborations commencing shortly.

We are fortunate to now have sponsorship from both Microsoft and Memory-Tech Corporation, and to have had the  sponsorship participation of both The Blu-ray Disc Association and the THX Best Practices Lab for our DVDA "Day of Excellence" event on June 21 2007. We have already been approached by new Sponsors who will join us in 2007 and 2008.

You will also see DVDA-sponsored and co-sponsored events like never before, since promoting DVD and related technologies is a mainstay of our mission statement. We are currently a co-Sponsor of Forbes Meet II (this month), Storage Visions Conference '08  (January '08), and the Media-Tech event in Miami (March '08). There will be many more events in 2008 where you will see the DVDA.

For the past two years, the DVDA has been an important part of NAB's Post-Production World Conference, and sponsored presentations and speakers who provided up to the minute information about the ever-changing face of optical disc, and we will continue to do so in 2008 and beyond.

For the first time, the DVDA "Day of Excellence" and Excellence Awards event will take place in Las Vegas, in conjunction with the National Association of Broadcasters show (NAB) in April, 2008.

With over 100,000 people in town during that week, the NAB Show has become the "must visit" destination for practically everybody working in the multimedia industry, and that includes those working with DVD. It is also a great place to introduce new ideas and products, and the DVDA will do that, as well, this coming year. (I can't divulge what they are yet, but you will get a sneak preview in early 2008, and they will be cool!)

As the Internet has made the world ever smaller, the reach of the DVDA has become larger, and more International.

We are pleased to recognize the establishment and growth of our first "National Adjunct", the DVDA-UK. We will present events in the UK/EMEA marketplace in collaboration with our DVDA-UK counterpart beginning in early 2008, and will continue to grow into other regions of the world as the years progress.

Our Membership Benefits are about to take a dramatic increase, as well. We have secured many new benefits for DVDA members, so please login and check the Member Benefits page(s) in the coming weeks (after Nov 1st). We will continuously be adding new benefits for you, our members.

Now, as promised, about the Chapters:  DVDA has had active chapters in New York and Los Angeles for a while now, and new DVDA Chapters are poised to take root in Denver, Atlanta, Orlando, and Chicago, in the coming months. You will find their upcoming and ongoing events listed here on the site, under the "Affiliates'" menu

The DVDA is totally committed to the growth of these fledgling chapters, and more beside..
Do you have a city where a DVDA Chapter would flourish? Let us know!