The World's Emptiest BD-66 disc

[BijouMan]

This game is only 2 GB in size and yet it's on a BD-66 disc, as the specification for PlayStation 5 Format Discs only allows BD-66 or BD-100 discs to be used.

[NDcowboy]

25gb discs don’t work on the PS5? I’ve wondered why some studios haven’t released some 4K films on 50 GB discs (as a cost saving measure) since it’s supposedly supported.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by NDcowboy

25gb discs don’t work on the PS5? I’ve wondered why some studios haven’t released some 4K films on 50 GB discs (as a cost saving measure) since it’s supposedly supported.

25GB layers have a lower peak bitrate than 33GB layers in the spec.

[Agent Kay]

This isn't a thread about Disney being "Cheap"?

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by NDcowboy

25gb discs don’t work on the PS5? I’ve wondered why some studios haven’t released some 4K films on 50 GB discs (as a cost saving measure) since it’s supposedly supported.

The PS5 reads BD-25 and BD-50 PlayStation 4 Format Discs.

[Alister_M]

I mean, I'm kinda surprised BD-33 isn't a thing for UHDs. But if there's no spec for it then it obviously can't be used as the player just wouldn't recognize it as a valid disc.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Alister_M

I mean, I'm kinda surprised BD-33 isn't a thing for UHDs. But if there's no spec for it then it obviously can't be used as the player just wouldn't recognize it as a valid disc.

There wasn't much point, given the increased data rates of 4K. You could put a 90 minute movie with a total average bitrate of just under 50 Mb/s (inc video, audio, subs etc) on a 33GB disc which wouldn't be the worst bitrate in the world, though with a bunch of audio tracks the video rate would start dropping. But given the average length of the average movie it just wasn't worth it, and as several encoding houses still shit the bed with 100GB discs I dread to think of how they'd mangle a 33GB encode.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by Agent Kay

This isn't a thread about Disney being "Cheap"?

I already have another thread for that.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by Alister_M

I mean, I'm kinda surprised BD-33 isn't a thing for UHDs. But if there's no spec for it then it obviously can't be used as the player just wouldn't recognize it as a valid disc.

BD-33 would be ideal for documentaries that are 30 to 60 minutes and for videogames that use 33GB or less of data. But since BD-33 does not exist, I guess the industry is stuck with 66GB being the smallest size disc for 4K. Maybe one day there will be 4 layer 128GB or 133GB movie disc releases since some 4K Blu-ray players might be able to play those discs without a firmware update while other models might require a firmware update.

[Alister_M]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

There wasn't much point, given the increased data rates of 4K. You could put a 90 minute movie with a total average bitrate of just under 50 Mb/s (inc video, audio, subs etc) on a 33GB disc which wouldn't be the worst bitrate in the world, though with a bunch of audio tracks the video rate would start dropping. But given the average length of the average movie it just wasn't worth it, and as several encoding houses still shit the bed with 100GB discs I dread to think of how they'd mangle a 33GB encode.

It's just a little surprising since a 33GB disc would obviously be cheaper to produce. I guess the industry at least wants to progress from the bad old days of WB squeezing something like The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford onto a BD25. Then again, you have the likes of the Avengers Endgame UHD having a lower bitrate than many BDs. In fact I believe I can guarantee you that Disney would be using UHD-33s if it was an option, especially for their animated catalog titles.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

BD-33 would be ideal for documentaries that are 30 to 60 minutes and for videogames that use 33GB or less of data. But since BD-33 does not exist, I guess the industry is stuck with 66GB being the smallest size disc for 4K. Maybe one day there will be 4 layer 128GB or 133GB movie disc releases since some 4K Blu-ray players might be able to play those discs without a firmware update while other models might require a firmware update.

Ultra HD Blu-ray drives either made for players or computers were only programmed with operation profiles for BD-66 and BD-100. There is such a thing as BD-R 128 but these are from the BDXL family of Blu-ray Discs, not the Ultra HD Blu-ray family. As such, these discs will not play in an Ultra HD Blu-ray player, except for some Ultra HD Blu-ray capable Blu-ray DVR models which can also burn programs to these, although 4K programs burned onto these or any Blu-ray Disc for that matter (including BD-R(E) 25/50/100) are not Ultra HD Blu-ray compliant and can only be played back on these DVRs.

[HDTV1080P]

The sad thing is blank recordable BD-R 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs do not exist, only blank BDXL discs up to 128GB for computer data backup exists. 100% of all 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs are like the Laserdisc format, they all are stamped (pressed) in a optical disc factory. The BDA should have developed recordable 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs and optical drives. There are some movie studios for some movie titles that only have a demand for a QTY of 500 discs per title, but the stamping process normally requires a minimum QTY of 1,000. Stamped optical discs can last over a 1,000 years, and recordable discs many have a lifespan of up to 100 years, except for the M-Disc optical recordable discs which can last over a 1,000 years.

[David M]

Originally Posted by Alister_M

I mean, I'm kinda surprised BD-33 isn't a thing for UHDs. But if there's no spec for it then it obviously can't be used as the player just wouldn't recognize it as a valid disc.

The UHD BD format has lesser used features dropped: Text subtitles, interlaced video, a bunch of different resolutions like 720p, browsable slideshows, and of course, 3D. If UHD33 were to be a specified format, it's likely it wouldn't get used much and therefore wouldn't have been worth delaying the format over. BD25 is rarely used on standard BD, for comparison.

[David M]

Originally Posted by NDcowboy

25gb discs don’t work on the PS5?

25gb discs have to work on the PS5. It's a mandatory feature of the original Blu-ray Disc format, so the device has to support it, regardless of how much or how little it's used.

[Alister_M]

Originally Posted by David M

BD25 is rarely used on standard BD, for comparison.

Unfortunately they're still popular with cheap-ass Australian distributors that primilarly do bare-bones releases. So there's probably more BD25s in my collection than there would be if not for that

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Alister_M

Unfortunately they're still popular with cheap-ass Australian distributors that primilarly do bare-bones releases. So there's probably more BD25s in my collection than there would be if not for that

So it's actually a good thing there's no 33GB UHD in the spec then, yes?

[David M]

Originally Posted by Alister_M

So there's probably more BD25s in my collection than there would be if not for that

I think the concept of single layer BD got a bad name because of some early titles made from bad masters that had to be on 25s, because 50gb replication hadn't been ramped up at the time. It's a fine amount of space for typical releases. Although probably what happened was that replication costs for 50s fell to the point where actually having to bitbudget at all wasn't necessary.

[Fendergopher]

I think at least we can agree that disc space isn't the be-all and end-all for determining the quality of the final encode, considering the amount of 100GB discs with 10+GB of unused space or 66GB discs with excellent encodes of grainy material. Although more space is better than less when push comes to shove.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Fendergopher

I think at least we can agree that disc space isn't the be-all and end-all for determining the quality of the final encode, considering the amount of 100GB discs with 10+GB of unused space or 66GB discs with excellent encodes of grainy material. Although more space is better than less when push comes to shove.

When a competent encoding house can put something on a 100GB disc with an average video rate of 80+ Mb/s and still leave 20+ GB of space then I'm not worried about what's being left on the table. It's putting a movie of a comparable length on a UHD66 and stuffing it to the brim with extra language options where the bit budget could suffer. Heck, Lawrence of Arabia is split over a UHD100 and UHD66 yet the average video bitrate is something like 50-ish Mb/s for both parts owing to all the language tracks.

Indie/smaller label releases have the luxury of not catering to 101 different markets (mostly, Blue Underground being the exception because Lustig literally owns several of the films) and even on a UHD66 it gives them plenty of room to groove, like with Dawn of the Dead averaging 60-ish Mb/s. But even then, you can give them 100GB of space with minimal language support and they'll still deliver dreck like this: https://www.screenshotcomparison.com...1191/picture:0 so yeah, the people doing the compression are at least as important if not more so than the amount of bits they've got to play with. More can only be better on paper, but if a monkey's doing the encoding then all those bits count for nada.

[Alister_M]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

So it's actually a good thing there's no 33GB UHD in the spec then, yes?

It may have come in handy for extras discs or something. Or, as David said, a BD25 fine for just a 90 minute movie by itself. Some of the BD25 discs I've got have over 2 hours of content squeezed onto them - actually the worst offender is probably not an Aussie disc, but the UK release of The Departed. 151 minute movie, with DTS-HD Master Audio, and all the SD extras. Though it easily beats the reissued Aussie disc, which dropped the PCM audio option from the first pressing.