The DVD Forum (initially DVD Consortium) was an industry consortium created to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas about the DVD format and its specifications from 1995 to 2025.
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👉 DVD Forum in the context of DVD-RAM
DVD-RAM (DVD Random Access Memory) is a DVD-based disc specification presented in 1996 by the DVD Forum, which specifies rewritable DVD-RAM media and the appropriate DVD writers. DVD-RAM media have been used in computers as well as camcorders and personal video recorders since 1998.
In May 2019, Panasonic, the only remaining manufacturer of DVD-RAM discs, announced that it would end production of DVD-RAM media by the end of that month, citing shrinking demand as the primary motivation. Panasonic made these discs under its own brand name and also under other brands such as Verbatim. The only other manufacturer to produce DVD-RAM discs was Maxell.
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DVD Forum in the context of DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in most of the world in the 2000s. As of 2025, it continues to compete with its high-definition Blu-ray Disc counterpart, while both receive competition as the collective delivery method of physical media by streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and an MPEG-2 decoder (e.g., a DVD player, or a computer DVD drive with a software DVD player). Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats (often multi-channel formats as described below). Typically, the data rate for DVD movies ranges from 3 to 9.5 Mbit/s, and the bit rate is usually adaptive. DVD-Video was first available in Japan on October 19, 1996 (with major releases beginning December 20, 1996), followed by a release on March 24, 1997, in the United States.
The DVD-Video specification was created by the DVD Forum and was not publicly available. Certain information in the DVD Format Books is proprietary and confidential and Licensees and Subscribers were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The DVD-Video Format Book could be obtained from the DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation (DVD FLLC) for a fee of $5,000. FLLC announced in 2024 that "On December 31, 2024, the current DVD Format/Logo License ("License") will expire. On the same date, our Licensing program, which originally started from 2000, will be terminated. There will be no new License program available and thus no License renewal is required."
View the full Wikipedia page for DVD-Video