For the DVD, Disney Magic May Be the Key

ARMED WITH A SCORECARD, a map of the heavens and perhaps clairvoyance, the bedazzled video enthusiast might boldly go where no shopper has gone before: into the brave new solar system of digital technology. Coming in the months ahead are not just one new world, the digital video disk, but several spheres of video enterprise whose scope and significance are yet to be determined.

After a tentative introduction in test markets, the DVD -- a CD-size disk that can hold an entire movie with surround sound -- has been catapulted into the national mainstream. If, that is, any video stream can be ''main'' when big fish like the Disney studios, 20th Century Fox and Paramount aren't swimming in it.

''DVD is very impressive, but I don't think anybody knows where it's going,'' said Garrett M. Lee, the director of marketing for Image Entertainment, a distributor of laser disks and now DVD's. ''A lot of consumers were confused early on, and we saw laser-disk orders fall off sharply as people began waiting for new titles to come out on DVD. But now that consumers have started to understand who's in and who's out, and that two of the most important studios, Disney and Fox, are out, the laser-disk market has somewhat stabilized.''

With more than 100 movies available on DVD, the pool is large enough to declare the format a success technically. Copies of recent films like ''Shine'' (New Line) and ''Fargo'' (Polygram) display a consistently rich palette and sharp detail; and older titles like ''Blade Runner'' (Warner) and ''Jailhouse Rock'' (MGM/UA) look astonishingly good. Indeed, it is the close resemblance of DVD's to masters that has caused some studios to shrink from the medium. They fear that despite efforts at copyright protection, the DVD version of a film could be marketed abroad ahead of the film's release in movie theaters.

Support from the powerful Disney studios would probably insure the DVD's commercial success. Without the magical draw of titles like ''The Lion King'' and ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame,'' the DVD may simply not fly.

The company regards DVD as ''an excellent technology,'' a Disney spokeswoman said, but it has no plans to release movies in the format. Hollywood's divisiveness and uncertainty concerning the DVD run deep. Only Warner Brothers has shown unqualified support for the medium. Involvement by the likes of MGM/United Artists and Columbia Tristar has been moderate. Amid great hoopla, Universal -- the producer of Steven Spielberg films like ''Jurassic Park'' -- recently joined the fold, on the most cautious terms.

By the end of the year, more than 200 movies will be available on DVD. But anyone considering purchase of a DVD player should bear in mind certain realities. The presentation of movies on the disks hardly matches the pop-and-play ease of VHS tape or even laser disk. Most DVD's offer a choice of image shapes (usually television shape or cinematic widescreen) and various audio options (mainly Dolby Surround or Dolby Digital Surround). Typically, those selections must be made from a menu.

Then there is the open question of DVD's very survival in the face of other emerging technologies, whether those looming alternatives are realistic or fanciful.

One DVD variant hovering on the speculative fringe is Zoom TV. Though it is still little more than a concept, its very name stikes terror and rage in the hearts of the DVD's promoters.

The idea is that you buy movies on DVD to play on a machine equipped with a satellite uplink. When you view the movie, a code on the disk notifies Zoom Central (so to speak), and your credit card is debited. You own the disk but rent the privilege of playing it. Zoom TV would be incompatible with present DVD players, and once again, the studios could become embroiled in a war of marketing philosophies.

Meanwhile, direct access to movies in high-quality video via digital satellite broadcast has thrown a lengthening shadow over the convention of owning disks or tapes at all. It is no great stretch to the larger, though fuzzier, issue of digital television and its implications for all existing video formats.

But the imminence of digital television seems to have been naively exaggerated. The first digital broadcasts may occur by late next year, and with them will come the first, very expensive digital televisions. The conversion of American television culture from analog to digital will take a long time.

''Digital televison just sort of muddies the waters,'' said Mr. Lee, of Image Entertainment. ''People are almost forced to upgrade their computers every six months. No wonder they're reluctant to invest in a television now. I don't believe people think like that, the major purchase of the week. You can only foist so much of this sort of thing on consumers before they shut down.''

The electronics industry may find that when consumers overload and crash, they are harder than computers to reboot. As for the prospect of some ''digital'' video software medium's suddenly rendering all else obsolete, it is time to tune to the Perspective Channel.

In video as in audio, the term ''digital'' does not in itself mean high definition. It merely refers to a method of storing and transferring data. Digital technology can be compromised, cheapened and watered down as readily as analog.

What's more, it is almost unimaginable that the Hollywood studios, which agonized long and painfully before splintering over copy protection on DVD, would ever allow high-definition digital software to reach consumers. Sony Pictures, Columbia Tristar's parent, is proud of its new high-definition mastering studio in Culver City, Calif., where pristine copies of new movies (and more recently, catalogue titles) are created for the archives. From those same high-definition masters, laser disks and DVD's are generated.

NASA will sell rocket cars before Hollywood places such technology in video shops.