A collection of Disks. Each DVD disc is a round, shiny disk similar in shape and appearance to a compact disc, but with a greater storage capacity (several gigabytes, depending on whether it is single- or double-sided and how many layers of information are encoded on each side). DVD-Disks are currently (1998) used for distribution and playback of Movie-CWs and multimedia software too large for CD-ROMs, and for backup of computer HardDiskDrives.