Rome HBO Series Question

[Tyrindor]

Can someone please put a couple of the discs in their computer and tell me how much data is actually being used. I have a hard time believing that a 22 episode show takes up almost 500GB. (10 discs @ 50GB each).

Just trying to figure out why they gave this boxset 10 discs.. seems like overkill unless they are 25GB discs.

Thanks.

[42041]

22 episodes, about 22 hours, so about 11's worth of 2-hour movies, which typically go on one disc. Sounds pretty reasonable to me Since when is cramming compressed video into a smaller space a good thing?

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Tyrindor

Can someone please put a couple of the discs in their computer and tell me how much data is actually being used. I have a hard time believing that a 22 episode show takes up almost 500GB. (10 discs @ 50GB each).

Just trying to figure out why they gave this boxset 10 discs.. seems like overkill unless they are 25GB discs.

Thanks.

Pretty positive the set has some bonus features too on some discs, which of course takes up space. I have the set but haven't watched it yet, but I'd rather have more space available than having everything crammed together with less discs.

[Tyrindor]

Originally Posted by 42041

22 episodes, about 22 hours, so about 11's worth of 2-hour movies, which typically go on one disc. Sounds pretty reasonable to me Since when is cramming compressed video into a smaller space a good thing?

Most of my Blu-ray shows are 4 episodes per disc, and I don't notice any bitrate issues.

[electricloseyland]

This is par for the course for HBO. Their DVDs in sets like Deadwood and Band of Brothers are usually two to a disc as well. I'm sure they could put a third episode on each disc with no compression issues or loss in quality -- after all, their extras are usually not much to write home about -- but they choose not to.

Contrast this with the Battlestar Galactica set, which has either four or five episodes (roughly 43 minutes each) per disc. That shakes out to be about 3 1/2 hours of material per disc, with high quality video and DTS HD-MA audio and pop-up extras.

I suspect HBO is trying to inflate the value of the set by making it look like you're getting more than you actually do.

[Torgee]

Not that it matters too much but because its on HBO with no commercials they dont have a set time deadline for each episode of Rome. So rather than the 43 minutes that most network shows are, the Rome episodes range from 45 minutes to an hour.

[Pyoko]

The total size for just the episodes is about 377 GB, and the total disc size is about 437 GB, so there is not a whole lot of space wasted.

There are two 24-bit DTS-HD MA tracks (English and German) and they average about 4 Mbps each, and the average video bitrate for the discs with only two episodes is around 30 Mbps. So while they could no doubt have squeezed it onto fewer discs, at least they did utilise the available space fairly well (unlike Warner for example.)

[NorCo_1806]

Dear HBO,

Could you please start loading more than two episodes of your "hour-long" shows on each DVD? I would also request that you start utilizing a feature I've fallen in love with on other multi-episode discs. It may seem fancy, and perhaps futuristic, but I think it should be possible for your engineers to configure.

It's called PLAY-ALL!!!!

Thanks,
Me

Why is it HBO seems to think I want to have to reach for the remote every 45 minuntes to initiate the next show? I mean really? Don't we buy these on DVD to watch more than one at a time? If I only wanted to watch one, I'd have watched it on TV.