I'm kinda new to the whole DVD thing. I've only bought a couple discs myself (most of my meager collection consists of gifts), but I have been looking around to see what's available.

Everything, it seems.

Movie studios are crapping out the vaults. I figure it costs maybe a buck a DVD to actually produce the things. When you consider that there's very little back end left on most of the old movies, even $5 DVDs are pure profit.

But movies aren't the most interesting thing on DVD. After all, if you have a good video store in town, you can find a large number of movies. The video store I frequent has everything from Cold Turkey, an early-70s black comedy starring Bob Newhart as a tobacco marketing executive who comes up with the brilliant plan of offering a ton of cash to any town that can quit smoking for an entire month (a premise that seems decidedly prescient these days), to Sister Sailor, a campy lesbian soft-core porno.

Um, yeah, they have normal movies too. In any case, I'm covered for film. But what about those obsessive freaks who want to own every episode of "The Bob Newhart Show," including the one where Bob hosts a Thanksgiving dinner with the boys and everyone gets bombed? Due to picture quality concerns, the most episodes studios could reasonably fit on one tape is four. If you assume a 22-24 episode season, that's six tapes per season times however many seasons. In any case, a couple of long-running series on tape could fill a whole bookshelf.

These days, fans of the "X-Files" will soon be able to fit the entire run of that series in a space that would hold a paperback set of Proust. I think that's the real attraction of DVD for TV fans. Yeah, the picture and sound beat tape hands down. And DVDs (if free of flaws in the first place--which cannot be assumed, of course) should keep performing in their present condition for the lifetime of the owner. Nice features, I'll admit. But the notion of owning every single episode of "Trading Spaces" (and the original British version, "Changing Rooms") and not having to add on to my own house to do so is what gets me excited.

DVD is a boon to every obsessive TV watcher. Think of the sports enthusiast. If packaged correctly, every single Super Bowl (with bonus footage of the halftime ads, natch) could easily fit in the space of a nice Complete Mark Twain set. Every game of every World Series that has been televised could fit on a shelf or two. You may not be interested in such a thing, but I think I'd invest in 1980 and 1985 at the very least. Forget the cheesy highlight videos that show only the "big" plays. We want every damn pitch. We want to savor every step of Curt Gibson's awkward stagger to the plate before whacking the home run that doomed the A's. The blast itself is nice, but the unseen details are what the sports nut craves.

Network news organizations have been under the gun to make more money. Why not dump piles of old footage onto DVD? As a Watergate junkie, I'd gladly buy a set of the televised hearings. All kajillion hours of them. Polished documentaries are fine, but I'd like more primary source material, please. This idea should interest the networks: All they have to do is burn their old footage straight onto the disc. No need to pay Tom Brokaw or David Brinkley a princely sum to introduce and narrate the thing; just list the "scenes" and away we go!

Once you get past all the whiz-bang of the technology, it's the capacity to store large amounts of raw footage (and access it easily) that makes the potential of DVD so interesting. Want real reality TV? How about a set of footage from the Iranian Revolution of 1979? Or maybe the events at Tiannemen Square are more to your liking. I myself would fancy a set of the 1984 presidential debates, complete with Ronald Reagan's first on-camera Alzheimer's episode. Take your pick. All with multiple angles! Alternate shots! The works!

Eventually everything will be on DVD. True-blue Courtney Cox fans will own the complete series run of "Misfits of Science." George Clooney fans might compare his stints on both "E.R."s (the hit drama of the 90s and the dud sit-com from the 80s). Carrie-Anne Moss fans can peruse her work on "The Matrix," a series from the early 90s, which should complement her work in The Matrix movies (not related) quite well.

Me, well, I'd be happy with a set of complete World Cup matches. If that's too much, I'll settle for just the Pele years.

Jon Worley just finished watching the BBC production of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Up next: the entire run of "Battlestar Galactica."