You meant one disc... I think.

They could make the space but chucking off the extras.

Having two disks doesn't always improve the picture quality either.

For example, our UK DVD of Gangs of New York is on a single disk, made possible by moving the extras to Disk 2, and it has a better quality image than the US DVD.

Obviously there comes a point where you really do need to split the movie, but I don't think that point comes until you hit around the 3 hr mark (assuming no extras taking up valuable space).

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is split into two disks (the non-Criterion version). I think there's only like 30 minutes on the second disk.

Most of the films that are split over 2 discs don't have any extras on at least one of the discs, aside from alternate audio tracks like commentary, which needs to be with the film.

The better quality of the UK disc has little to do with it being on one disc. The US DVD actually has a better video bitrate, almost 1Mbps on average, but is overshadowed by excessive edge enhancement:
http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/a...-r1-vs-r2.html

So bitrate isn't the only thing that determines quality, but it is an important factor, and usually the one that determines whether a film needs to be split or not.

Most of the films split over 2 discs are over 3 hours long.

There's about an hour of film on the 2nd disc on the newer Warner release:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcom...elightness.htm

The Warner has almost the same bitrate as the Criterion, despite the addition of a French soundtrack and more subtitles. Some older films need a bigger bitrate to compensate for film grain, such as Godfather Part 2.

It doesn't need to be with the film for me. I don't care to have the continuity of the movie broken just for a commentary - the integrity of the movie takes precedence. If losing the commentary means the film can stay on one disk, I'd rather that.

no problem on long films...helps make everything look smooth.

Apocolypse now was such a clusterfuck because they could have but each cut on a seperate disc...

I have a sneaking suspicion that Paramount split both movies so that people who liked only one version of the movie didn't sell the other disc on eBay.

It's stupid logic, but it's the only thing I can come up with.

On a 3 hour movie, a commentary might take up 250 MB of a 9 GB DVD. So unless they split it across two discs because the last 4 minutes wouldn't fit on there, I don't think commentaries are to blame.

It might sound like an insignificant amount, but if you have to reduce the size of the movie by ~250MB, it can become enough to tip the balance into the introduction of visible artefacts into the video. When you also consider that a DVD will typically contain 2 or more DD 5.1 tracks to accommodate different languages as well as a 2.0 surround track, it becomes even more so. That annoys me too.

The ultimate point I'm getting at here is that if you minimise the baggage, you'd be able to get more films on a single disk without any loss in quality. Schindler's List without having to flip the disk, for example. I can't imagine the film would have needed to continue on Side B if it weren't for the fact that it had English DTS 5.1, English DD 5.1, French DD 5.1 and Spanish DD 5.1.

I actually like it on long films. Provides a much needed break.

You can take a break anytime you want on any movie by hitting the pause button.

Schindler's List is obout 3 1/4 hours long, so it would've been a tight fit on one side even with only one DD 5.1. With the lowest audio bitrate, the video bitrate would max out at 5.45Mbps, compared to the average of 7.34Mbps on the current DVD. A nearly 2Mbps drop in video bitrate would probably correlate to a drop in video quality.

I also disagree with classifying audio tracks as "baggage." For those for whom audio quality is as important as video quality, a DTS or at least a higher bitrate DD track is a must. Also, while I personally don't see the need for dub tracks, the studio is courting a certain demographic with them, one that's large enough to justify producing those tracks, let alone including them.

Finally, you've said before that a film probably needs to be split once it hits the 3 hour mark, and Shindler's List is over 3 hours.

I would consider that as a "tv miniseries", instead of a "movie". Quite understandable for a miniseries to be split up. :-)

1) The price of AN:TCD was not the point of my mention of value; it was the double-dip I was referring to.

2) My "qualifications to make such pronouncements"? Firstly, as stated in my original post, I already own both versions of AN, and they DO fit on a single disc. With a few extras. And I have authored (or assisted with authoring) several dozen DVDs (including menus, etc.), if you must know. Bitching about my qualifications in this field "means nothing if you don't know what you're talking about."

3) Better picture quality? Marginally, if at all, especially in the case of AN. Especially since Coppolla keeps allowing others to fuck with the OAR of this film.

A couple others that I have that I didn't see mentioned were Stephen King's It and The Pelican Brief.

Tight fit, yes. Impossible fit, no. There are plenty of disks out there that cram a 2 hour movie with a few audio tracks and several featurettes and still look great.

The image quality on Schindler's List is excellent but far from perfect on the current set anyway, so the 2 disk split hasn't served to make much of an improvement, if any.

Taking your reasoning to its logical conclusion, we should split the movie up onto even more disks so we can get the bitrate as high as possible. I'm sure you wouldn't want that. It's about compromise and the bottom line is, studios are a little too quick to chuck a movie on two disks when there are other options available to them that would enable the movie to stay on a single disk. A movie is an atomic entity that should be respected as such. Splitting the atom should only happen as a last resort, after other options have been exhausted.

Oh audio quality is just as important to me. I said nothing about lowering the bitrate on audio tracks. I was talking exclusively about those additional foreign language tracks and pointless downmixed English 2.0 surround tracks. Those are what I mean by baggage. I understand completely why they're there but what the studios are trying to do is make a single disk sellable in as many terroritories as possible by maxing out the foreign language tracks to minimize costs and maximize that profit. There's no reason it has to be like that.

And if you like your DTS tracks, movie splits are a killer as you have to reselect the damn thing again before you can start watching the next disk and sometimes even be forced to sit through the DTS trailer again! Talk about ruining the mood and taking me out of the movie.

I said about 3 hours.

Schindler's List is also a good example for how to make an awful disk break. The movie just stops on Side A after some dialogue and up pops a message to flip the disk. A better timed breakpoint with a more gracious fade out like with the LOTR EEs would've been more appropriate.

Yeah, I own it, I can't help but to think how silly the 2nd disc truly is for this release. For the most part I have experience with playing Laserdiscs and flipping them over, so it really isn't a hassle at all for me with a little DVD or putting disc #2 in. I own the new Titanic 3-disc set and it's great to have this option for optimum picture quality. I think what really bothers people about a long movie being divided on 2 dvds is what if I can't find the 2nd disc or I lose it.

Consider it as a brief intermission, which allow the viewer to use the bathroom, or grab a snack from the fridge.

From your original post it seemed very much that you were complaining about studios allegedly splitting films just to increase price:

The implication from that post would be that the studios would've priced it less had it been only one disc, thus why they split it into two.

If you're just complaining about the studio double-dipping, why mention the split discs at all?

Each individual film does. However, combining the two could drive the combined length into the size that required splitting the film. And if they hadn't combined the edits, they would've still needed two discs, as each version would need a disc to itself.

The word is "authored."

Were these professional authoring jobs?

That'd be better quality as in "better quality than if they had tried combining both edits onto one disc."

I think the cinematographer is fairly qualified to state what aspect ratio the film was shot for.

What I hate about this one is that the extras are also spread over both discs. Why couldn't they put the movie on one disc and the extras on the other?

No fit is technically impossible if you don't have a standard for quality. They could've dropped the bitrate by near 2Mbps, but would the film still have looked of good quality?

And there are a multitude of factors that go into this, not the least of is that the film is near 40% shorter, meaning there's that much more space to work with without compromising video quality.

I don't get this reasoning. The image quality doesn't look good now, so drastically dropping the bitrate can't make it look worse?

From another of your posts:
Before you were complaining about the loss of 192kbps from the video bitrate for a commentary track, yet you see no problem with a drop in bitrate nearly 10 times that size?

No, the bitrate should be set at a level so that the compression is near transparent. That level can vary from film to film, and depending on the length of the film this might require spltting a film.

A little too quick? The number of films that have been split over multiple discs or sides account for a fraction of the DVDs available, probably as low as 1-2%. Almost all are of a length over 3 hours, a length which you yourself said

That'd be a justifiable standard if you can testify that you've never paused or stopped a film before, therefore "splitting" the experience. Looking at the rarity of such releases does indicate that studios do consider it a last resort.

For some releases, the DD 2.0 track might constitute the film's orginal soundtrack, with a 5.1 remix tagged on. Many film purists want these soundtracks included since it's the remixes that could be considered "pointless," especially when they mess with the elements and produce a sub-par remix.

As I pointed out, even after eliminating the DTS and foreign language tracks from Schindler's List, the film would've still needed a drop in bitrate of nearly 2Mbps to fit on one disc. Even a full-bitrate DTS track, the largest there is, is under 2Mpbs. So it's usually not the audio tracks that cause a film to be spread over two discs, although once it is there's more room for additional soundtracks.

I would hardly call pressing a few additional buttons on my remote "killer." And I've never had to sit through the DTS trailer on a 2nd disc.

Schindler's list is over 3 hours. Maybe the first 3 hours would've fit fine, with only the last 15mins driving the bitrate down enough to "tip the balance," as you said. At that point, they could've slapped the last 15min on a 2nd disc, but if they're going to split the film anyway, why not do it in a way that maximizes the space of both discs while utilizing the extra space for additional audio tracks as well?

They could've mastered the break better, but I don't see how a bad break negates the need to have split the film in the first place. In fact, that they didn't master the break better could be an indicator that the studio had left splitting the disc until all other options had been exhausted, as you suggested they do.

Probably because the film wouldn't fit on one disc, while the extras wouldn't have fully used up the other. So faced with this delima, the studio would have two choices:

1) Fit as much of the film on the first disc, putting the rest of the film and all of the extras on the 2nd.

2) Split the film a bit more evenly among the two discs, putting extras on both.

The reasons for choosing option 2 can include maximizing bitrate for the film and choosing a spot that makes a good "break" in the film as opposed to just stopping when space runs out.

3) Third disc for extras.

What I'm getting from your posts on this thread is that you're happy with every single multi-disk movie ever released and the studios never do anything wrong.

It's incomparable. When it's on the disk, it's permanent and I am forever forced to 'split the experience' at that point, whenever I watch the movie, forever. I can never enjoy the movie in its entirety as the film maker intended.

You've never watched Schindler's List on DVD then, because that's precisely what happens.

And yes, it is indeed a killer to have to start selecting audio options again. Whatever emotions you were feeling during the movie begin to dissipate as soon as the disk break raises its ugly head.

For someone who's arguing for original soundtracks, high bitrates, commentaries, and catering for those who speak foreign languages, you don't seem to care too much for the actual movie itself.

And? "About" means that something can be a certain amount less or more than a stated figure.