As I already mentioned in a previous post, and you commented on, the UK DVD of Gangs of New York fits the movie on a single disk just fine and moves all the extras to the second disk.

First, that's untrue. Secondly, that has nothing to do with your claim that studios are a "little to quick" to split a film to two discs, when in reality it rarely happens and is typically on very long films with lengths that even you conceed could justify such a split.

How do you know what the filmmaker intended? Maybe they wanted an intermission in the film, but current studio and theater conditions just don't allow those to occur anymore. Also, quite a number of these have director involvement, so they are aware and complicent with the change. Additionally, some of these films are extended editions, so talk about their theatrical treament isn't applicable. Finally, while a split might be a regrettable compromise to deliver a quality product for home viewing, it's often a necessary one. It's not like home video doesn't already have its compromises, with the limited image resolution, reduced audio quality, and variations in image and sound quality of the delivering equipment.

And again, moral outrage at such a pause in the viewing of a film, no matter how permanent, should be held only by those who have never done so themselves.

The DTS trailer starts playing when you hit the "audio" button on your remote while watching? Again, as with the split point on the DVD, a poor judgement choice on a single DVD doesn't really damn the process of splitting as a whole.

Whatever emotional impact a film has could be severly hampered by having a bitrate so low that compression artifacts interfere with one's experience, as could happen by trying to cram it on one disc. And the pause button that you've been advocating the use of can break a film just as easily, and just as easily does all the time, especially when dealing with a 3+ hour film.

I care enough about the film that I want it presented in the best possible way. In an ideal world that would mean the best video and audio quality in an ininterrupted presentation. However, when dealing with the limited space of DVD, some compromises are needed. I'm much happier with a split film than a reduced quality film, especially since a DVD changer can reduce the impact of the first, but no home technology exists that can increase a DVD's bitrate.

What is that "certain amount" though? Is 3 1/2 hours "about" 3 hours? If 15 minutes more is acceptable, then shouldn't 15 minutes less than 3 hours be acceptable as "about" 3 hours too?

Should a film be held to an arbitrary measure of time that you "feel" a DVD should be able to hold, or should the DVD authors look at the video quality and determine whether it can be successfully maintained on one disc or two?

Again, "fits" is a relative term. Gangs of New York suffered a near 1Mbps drop in average video bitrate to fit on one disc in the UK. Whether or not the lower bitrate UK 1-disc offers comparable quality is up for debate, since the US 2-disc suffers from considerably more edge-enhancement and no direct disc-to-disc comparisons have been made that I can find.

However, coming from someone who claimed that a video bitrate loss of 192kbps could be "enough to tip the balance into the introduction of visible artefacts into the video," I would think that a near 1Mbps drop in bitrate, or about 5 times what you were talking about, would at least be cause for concern.

Quality is subjective, but I think the evidence supports the declarations that studios do not split movies over two discs just to make more money, they don't do it often at all, and when it is done it's typically with films of a length that it's understandable, and done after careful consideration by the studio over the film's quality and any possible alternatives.

Which releases that split the movie over 2 disks are you unhappy about?

Have any stated this?

Nonsense. That's like saying that moral outrage at those who write notes in library books should be held only by those who have never written notes on a separate piece of paper. One is permanent, the other is not.

So now, as well as the break in the movie that you're happy about, I also have to disturb the movie while it's in progress by switching audio tracks?

Universal prohibited switching audio tracks with the audio button on Schindler's List anyway so it's not possible.

Here's the full list of what we have to go through to watch part 2 of Schindler's List since you don't mind "pressing a few additional buttons on your remote":

Wait for the disc to start up.
Choose 'Menu' from the options.
Wait for the animated menu, complete with music, to complete.
Choose 'Languages'.
Choose 'DTS 5.1'.
Choose 'YES' to the DTS warning page, to state that I do wish to continue.
Watch the DTS trailer (you know, the one with the piano).

Then, finally, I get to continue watching the movie.

I never said it did. It was an additional point I was making. I never damned the process of movie splitting as a whole either.

Yes, it can. But those are not always the only two choices.

I advocate the use of the pause button?!

Yes, any break affects the emotional impact of the film. Ideally, a film should be watched from start to finish with no breaks at all.

How is that an argument for always splitting movies over 2 disks?!

So you don't like permanent changes either huh?

Compromises is the key word here.

It doesn't always have to be the case that a long movie has to be split over 2 disks. When it does, then it does. But there are cases where a movie could be put on a single disk without any noticeable degradation in image or audio quality, by making other compromises, such as removing extras, extraneous audio tracks, etc.

Well obviously the latter. But when they're looking at the quality and making compromises, they're not just thinking about the movie, but also the extras, additional audio tracks, etc.


Yes, it suffers from edge enhancement, but the bottom line here is that the US disc has no advantage by spreading the movie over 2 discs. Yes it has a higher bitrate, but that doesn't translate to better quality in the end, even without edge enhancement.

Here's a comparison for you:

http://whiggles.landofwhimsy.com/wri...ofnewyork.html


Yes, it's cause for concern but I talked about 'tipping the balance' because I don't care about quality blindly. I know better than to think that a high bitrate translates automatically into a better picture. Something that you seemed to agree with too earlier on.

Sometimes, a movie is split over two disks without offering any improvement in quality over if they had made other compromises and put it on one disk.

This is something I've never argued for: I also don't agree that they are splitting the movies to make money. I believe it's just about choosing one set of compromises over another.

None that I own. However, I am not presumptious enough to say that I am happy with all split discs when I haven't viewed them all. I can certainly see why some people may be unhappy with the Schindler's List DVD, although the problems with that aren't so much the split but the execution of it.

Have any stated that they didn't want their film split? Again, the film's directors often have extensive input on these DVDs.

No, a proper book anaology would be moral outrage over splitting a novel into multiple volumes should only be held by those who've never paused in reading a book. Sure, it's regrettable complete novels like LOTR had to initially be split into multiple volumes, but it was due to issues in book binding causing maximum page issues, and it was better than abrdiging the book,or over compressing it in other words.

Switching an audio track with the remote within the first few seconds of a disc playing is at best a minor inconvenience.

It seems that more and more of your complaints are one of convenience, that is, what's most convenient to you. You use the excuse of "interupting the flow/impact of the film," but if a film is already split and thus interupted, what's a few more button presses? Why are you listening to the DTS track anyway? You've said that you'd much prefer to get rid of it than have your viewing interrupted, so it seems you'd much rather not listen to it than have to press a few more buttons, especially since you hate the additional button presses so much.

You have said that studios are "too quick" to do it though, which you've never proven. Your examples are far from definitive, though.


Really, how would you know? When hasn't it been a choice between splitting the film over two discs or suffering a loss in video quality? At the least, all the split discs you've mentioned actually had a higher bitrate on the split disc version, which indicates that video quality was probably an issue.

From another of your posts:
If you were really for an uninerupted movie experience at home, you wouldn't suggest the pause button to anyone, and advocate for its removal, since it affects the viewing experiences of films far more often than the handful of split discs do.

How often to you personally meet this ideal on movies of around 3 hours or more?

Who the hell said movies should always be split?

And it isn't always the case. The instances of split discs are relatively rare.

How do you know these films can fit properly on one disc? Were you there to author them? Did you see the differences in quality the bitrate change would cause, like the near 2Mbps drop in bitrate Schindler's List would have to suffer even with no extras and one audio track? How can you say with any certainty that the change in bitrate required wouldn't have "tipped the balance" in video quailty? You're making assumptions on the studio's motives and the film's video quality with little to no evidence to back it up.

Also, extras almost never factor into splitting a disc. If a film could fit entirely on one disc with all the extras on the other disc, then that is done. It uses up the same number of discs as splitting a film, and doesn't interrupt the viewing experience of the film itself Splitting a film is done when the film needs more space, not the extras.

Also, I'm not sure how you can say that audio quality wouldn't have the be compromised in one hand, when you advocate the removal of other audio tracks like DTS in the other. You've shown a lack of concern over DD .20 tracks as well, when that might be the film's original soundtrack. Finally, as has been pointed out before, the extra audio tracks are usually not the contributing factor to the decision to split the disc. Typically the film would need to be split even absent the additional audio tracks.

As I've just shown, they're not considering extras at all, and likely not considering the audio tracks either when splitting a disc. Take a look at the LOTR theatrical discs vs. their respective EEs. The theatricals lack the DTS track on the EE, but the EEs would've had to have been split even sans a DTS track. So studios are more apt to discard an audio track than split a film.

It doesn't directly translate into better quality, in that incresing the bitrate by 20% may not increase the quality by the same degree. However, higher bitrate means less compression, which means higher quality of at least some degree always. That the bitrate is higher on all the split discs indicates that video bitrate, and by extension video quality, was a consideration.

From that comparison:
"The US transfer is slightly better encoded than the UK release, but the higher level of EE balances this out, in my opinion." As the EE levels weren't identical, it's impossible to directly compare video quality or bitrate. The US disc may have looked markedly better had it had less EE, or have looked markedly worse with any lower of a bitrate.

Your arguing is inconsistent. First you assert that even a bitrate change of 192kbps caused by an additional audio track can "tip the balance," yet you shrug of exponentially higher bitrate changes of 1Mbps and 2Mbps required to fit a film on one disc as likely having no impact. If you think that the smaller change could "tip the balance," shouldn't you at least consider that the significant larger decreases could do so as well, and are in fact much more likely too?

How do you know this though? You're making assumptions about the studio and the film that you have no evidence of. You make the assumption that splitting the disc isn't a big concern to a studio, when everything points to it being a big concern in most cases. The majority of films, even 3 hour ones, are jammed onto one disc. If it isn't, the studio must've had good reasons to do so, even if one of those reasons is as subjective as image quality.

I assume that since you didn't quote or respond to them, you agree with my other declarations: that studios don't do split films often at all, and when it is done it's typically with films of a length that it's understandable, and done after careful consideration by the studio over the film's quality and any possible alternatives.

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1) Fixed, thank you.

2)Yes.

3) I think the OAR should be left alone; fuck the cinematographer. Give me AN in 2.85:1, please, and I'll gladly buy another copy....even if they split that one, too.


After seeing all the excessive irritation this thread has caused some folks, I wish I'd never brought the damned subject up.

The OAR for AN is 2.39:1, although it's sometimes referred to as 2.35:1, which was the older standard AR for scope.

It seems the cinematogapher chose to crop it slightly to 2:1 due to the extremely low resolution of Standard Def TV:
http://www.zoetrope.com/zoe_films.cg...one&film_id=13

If that's true, then there may be hope that they open the film back up to full 2.39:1 when transferred to HD, which has 6 times more resolution than SD.

However, he has also had lofty ambitions in the past to advance 2:1 as a sort of universal aspect ratio:
http://www.cameraguild.com/interview...raro_univi.htm

I don't know if he's given up on his Univisium system, but the rest world certainly seems to have.

Unfortunately, it was split in a horrific spot. I believe it was a 3 part series. Instead of putting 2 parts one side and 1 on the other, they put one and a half parts on each side. The disc literally stops right in the middle of a scene/conversation and block letters tell you to flip the disc. Terrible.

I can see putting approximately half on each side, that makes sense. However, they should've split it where a commercial break originally was.