THE DISC GENERATION: ARE VCRs HEADED THE WAY OF 8-TRACK TAPES?

Pat Bond arranged DVDs in the rental section of Hastings Books and Music.

You've see them slowly creeping into the video rental stores: DVDs, considered by many to be the hottest thing in home electronics. But what the heck are they?

The Digital Versatile Disc -- also called the Digital Video Disc -- can be used to store video, audio and computer data.

DVDs featuring movies are rapidly gaining in popularity.

"DVD offers twice the picture and sound quality as a VCR," said John Payne, manager at Stereo One Inc. electronics store.

For the time being, DVDs and videotapes share shelf space in video rental stores.

Hollywood Video and Hastings Books and Music stores have rented DVDs for about a year.

Blockbuster Video just began renting DVD films last week.

Although Hollywood Video mainly carries videotapes, some 10 percent of the store's merchandise is also available in DVD, said Mark Leb, a shift leader at the store.

"I would say DVD rentals make up about 25 percent of our customers," Leb said.

The majority of people who rent the discs don't bother to rent players, Leb said.

"They either own their own players or have computers that can play DVDs," he said.

Many movie titles are not yet available on DVD, most notably, movies controlled by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Both have said they want more DVD players to be sold before they allow their films to be released on the format.

What's with all the fuss?

The DVD looks just like a compact disc, a silver disc about 5 inches across with a hole in the center.

Like the CD, data are recorded onto DVDs in a spiral of microscopic etchings, or "pits" that are then read by a laser beam.

However new technology allows the pits on a DVD to be smaller and packed much more tightly allowing it to hold much more information.

But unlike a CD, a DVD can store several layers of information and be double-sided.

This is particularly useful in the computer world with its appetite for increased storage capacity.

The increased data allow films to be viewed in truer colors and sharp realistic images.

Unlike videocassettes, DVDs have the benefit of not wearing out when played over and over again.

With a DVD you can easily access different portions of a film, whereas with a VCR you have to rewind or fast-forward the tape, both of which deteriorate the quality of the videocassette.

You can also freeze an image on the screen and block out certain portions of films, effectively censoring them for a younger viewing audience.

According to information from Best Buy Online, since DVD players were first introduced on the market in 1997, more than 1.5 million players and some 15 million discs have been sold.

Those numbers are nearly 15 times higher than VCRs at the same point in their development.

You can't use a DVD player to record your favorite TV program yet, but eventually the VCR is expected to become a thing of the past.

In the short term, DVD players are expected to replace LaserDisc players, but it will be a few years, if ever, before the VCR becomes obsolete.

When DVD becomes recordable and reaches VHS prices, then video recorders may be a thing of the past.

However, high-capacity DVD recording systems aren't expected to be released until the year 2002 and then they're expected to be fairly expensive.

Payne said he's not holding his breath. He doesn't see the disappearance of the VCR in the near future.

In fact, "I'm not sure that's ever going to happen," he said.

Apparently, movie-makers don't like the idea of people being able to make exact copies using recordable DVD players. It would mean anybody could run off perfect copies of the latest films.

Even when recordable DVDs are ready for the market, copyright troubles in Hollywood could delay DVDs with recording capability indefinitely.

For now, DVDs are treated like compact disc players, which also can't record.

Payne said he sees people using DVDs to watch movies and the VCR to record other programs.