Disc-Flipper

Have there ever been any Blu-ray releases which have utilized the disc capacity to fit more SD content onto one disc? An example of this would be an old SD TV series with many episodes on a high-capacity Blu-ray disc? I remember this being mentioned as a possibility for the format.

milo bloom

Aside from extras produced during the SD era, I can't think of anything else.

Before the Star Trek TNG remastering project was started, I had said many times I would accept a Bluray of the SD episodes if meant they were at least remastered because the TNG DVDs are wretched.

I know I would buy such discs if it meant slightly better compression and such, even if the picture was still SD. I'd love to see MST3K episodes done this way, you could fit a handful of them even on a single layer BD, can you imagine season sets from Shout! done this way?

stingermck

These 2 releases have 25 movies on 1 bluray disc:

EddieMoney

Wow, I bet those look great.

rocket1312

I would totally embrace the idea of studios releasing SD TV series on BDs. MST3k would be perfect for this sort of thing. You could put what, 8-10 episodes on a single disc and not have to compromise compression? That sure would save a lot of shelf space.

bunkaroo

I have every MST3K box set, plus 3 or 4 single DVD's. They alone take up something like 3 feet of my shelf.

milo bloom

I have every box and almost every single. It's two shelves worth.

I could only see myself rebuying if they were some sort of season or half-season sets though.

Josh-da-man

Historically, such a move wouldn't have happened because the studios wanted to have their television series spread over multiple discs in order justify the higher prices in the minds of the consumer.

It's easier for the consumer to justify $60+ for a season of a television show on six discs than it would be for the same content to be presented on a single disc.

Shannon Nutt

There were some porn releases that did this shortly after the format came out...basically compilations that put a ton of old scenes onto a single disc.

orangerunner

I remember the Blu-ray powers-that-be (Sony?) agreed that the Blu-ray format would be for HD content only for the main feature and only supplemental material could be SD.

I guess this was designed to protect consumers from receiving inferior product because the brand was tightly associated with HD content.

Maybe they have loosen-up on this or there are some manufacturing plants that are not abiding by the rules.

TheBang

Actually, it's much more than that. On a dual-layer DVD, you could fit 4 "hour-long" episodes (45 minutes without commercials).

If you use the same MPEG-2 encode, you could fit 5.5 times as many episodes on a dual-layer BD (50 GB BD vs. 9 GB DVD). That is, 22 episodes on a single disc. If you switch to AVC codec instead of MPEG-2, you could almost double that number again.

So, using dual-layer BD's and AVC codec, the studios could fit the SD content from 10 DVD's onto 1 BD. Shelf-space saver indeed! If they ever did it. But they never will.

davidh777

milo bloom

Well, even if they're standard def, the extra room on the Blu should give them plenty of space to breathe, that's the point of this discussion.

Now for the titles in question I would be doubtful, since I doubt their sources are any good to start with, so GIGO applies.

LosingMyMind

There are quite a few SD collections available in Germany, including Tales from the Crypt. Brian from Shout Factory claimed that they're not allowed to release SD compilations due to the Blu-Ray provision. The main feature of the disc must be HD, but supplements can be SD.

There must be some kind of loophole for the above two compilations to have been released.

orangerunner

I guess there are many small, independently authored and burned titles where the distributor can do whatever they please.

I would think the commercial pressing plants would have to follow the rules, but then again if they come from plants in China, India...

rocket1312

I totally understand that. Even today, some (myself included) balk at paying more than $20-$30 for a tv season even though they may contain 5 to 10 times the content that the single movie they were willing to pay $15-$20 for. For the record, I don't really think any of this would ever happen, but I would love it if it did.

milo bloom

Shelf space is becoming a premium for folks like myself, there's only so many titles I can thinpack hack. I would pay *a little* bit more of a price for an SD compilation on one Bluray, I'm aware the material on the disc still has value, but the producer is also reducing their costs on production and packaging.

Spottedfeather

I'd love for them to put out individual episodes instead of the 4 episode sets they have. The sets either have only one episode that I want or they have one good Mike episode and 3 useless Joel episodes....

bunkaroo

LOL yet another minority opinion from you - why I am not surprised?

BTW the Joel episodes completely own anything Mike did. Mike wasn't bad, but seasons 3, 4 and the first half of 5 were gold.

EddieMoney

But wouldn't those buying a BD expect high-definition? It would have the BD logo, correct? And if not, then you have someone with a set of discs that they can't play on their DVD player, and then they're pissed and fucked.

Drexl

I wouldn't shrink them down too much though. Don't let AVC be just for reducing the bitrate further. Use typical DVD bitrates, but with AVC to reduce compression artifacts.

Another benefit I didn't see mentioned is that SD content could have lossless audio. This would be especially good for concerts that were shot on SD video.

Rypro 525

the Alien box set has 4 3 hour + standard def docs on the making of the moves all on one disc

LPMA

They would definitely need to be properly identified as containing SD content.

Alan Smithee

Doesn't really seem fair to REQUIRE hi-def content on Blu-Rays, as using them to hold a large amount of content that's always been standard-def (anything shot on standard-def video) would be useful. I thought the Simpsons Blu-Rays were actually standard-def given that they were in 4x3 and made for broadcast TV, but just checked them and they appear to be true hi-def. Behind on several seasons so it'll be a while before I get to the ones on Blu-Ray.

milo bloom

I've actually thought about this before and the way I could see it working is to label it as something like "SuperBlue" disc, noting that it should work in the majority of BluRay players. Kinda tapdances around the rules without strictly breaking them.