Disturbing Trend

[Canada]

I have gone to the Blu-Ray movies and noticed a disturbing trend, new Blu-Ray movies being only 25 gigs!

1. Black Snake Moan
2. Cruel Intentions
3. Flatliners

There were others too but I am not counting direct to DVD/Blu-Ray.

There is no excuse for this, and two of these titles is produced by Sony the other is Paramount

I can not see why any company would use disks with less space, doesn't Sony want there disks to look good? I thought they were trying to win a format war.

I might see companies using 50 gig 75 gig and 100 gig disks when they are able to get 150 gig 175 gig or 200 gigs on to a disk, but were not there yet. Wasn't one of Sony's big reasons for developing Blu Ray was so companies could fit information more on a disk?

[u_nick]

I got imagine movies more than a copule years old, like Cruel Intentions and Flatliners wouldnt benefit from a larger disc. Some of these movies werent 'built' with HD in mind. So if the quality of the original print is decent, but not crazy good, and it fits on a 25GB disc with now problem, i dont see the harm. Otherwise it would just waste space.

[The Don]

yeah BD50 is more-so for newer movies...

Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon was on a BD50...but that disc has pretty much every documentary based on him along with other stuff...

so they found a way to use the 50 gigs...

50 gigs for these movies would be pointless..as they aren't shot with a HD cam..

[erowe83]

Originally Posted by Canada

I have gone to the Blu-Ray movies and noticed a disturbing trend, new Blu-Ray movies being only 25 gigs!

1. Black Snake Moan
2. Cruel Intentions
3. Flatliners

There were others too but I am not counting direct to DVD/Blu-Ray.

There is no excuse for this, and two of these titles is produced by Sony the other is Paramount

I can not see why any company would use disks with less space, doesn't Sony want there disks to look good? I thought they were trying to win a format war.

I might see companies using 50 gig 75 gig and 100 gig disks when they are able to get 150 gig 175 gig or 200 gigs on to a disk, but were not there yet. Wasn't one of Sony's big reasons for developing Blu Ray was so companies could fit information more on a disk?

I must say, Black Snake Moan has great PQ so I dont see the problem.

[Chad Varnadore]

The age of a film has nothing to do with it. If mastered well, the only thing that keeps an older movie from looking as good as a newer one is depreciation/deterioration of the elements. What holds older films back more than anything are studios, cheaply using outdated masters instead of forking out the dough to remaster, taking the time to do it right. Sony and some other studios are at least evaluating the elements to see how well they'll hold up in high def now. And I think that's all we can reasonably expect. If the master is subpar, they should put the title on the backburner until sales are high enough to justify remastering. Though, considering that the master is used for broadcast and other venues as well, the burden doesn't shouldn't lie completely on BDs back.

[Chad Varnadore]

Originally Posted by Canada

I have gone to the Blu-Ray movies and noticed a disturbing trend, new Blu-Ray movies being only 25 gigs!

1. Black Snake Moan
2. Cruel Intentions
3. Flatliners

There were others too but I am not counting direct to DVD/Blu-Ray.

There is no excuse for this, and two of these titles is produced by Sony the other is Paramount

I can not see why any company would use disks with less space, doesn't Sony want there disks to look good? I thought they were trying to win a format war.

I might see companies using 50 gig 75 gig and 100 gig disks when they are able to get 150 gig 175 gig or 200 gigs on to a disk, but were not there yet. Wasn't one of Sony's big reasons for developing Blu Ray was so companies could fit information more on a disk?

While disc capacity does correlate to the quality of the encode, it alone is not an indicator of disc quality. If they needed 50GBs to do Flatliners and CI right, I'm sure Sony would have used it. They've proven their willingness to go the extra mile time and again with BD. Flatliners is under 2 hours and doesn't contain any extras. Even with PCM, 25GBs could be plenty capable of handling the film. But, I haven't looked at it yet. It also depends on how demanding the video is, noisier films need higher bit budgets to optimally preserve grain. Cleaner looking films generally don't. But, there are other elements that necessitate high bitrates other than random noise. I don't think fans could have asked for much better treatment of CI from Sony. They preserved the film impeccably, included PCM and all of the significant extras from the previous DVD (sans some production notes and trailers). I haven't looked at BSM yet.

[darkpoet25]

The Patriot, The Warriors, and The Untouchables are all BD-50. The Warriors is almost a 30 year old film. But since this version is the director's cut, it has a newer transfer. Not to mention all 3 have extras that probably require the extra space, whereas Flatliners had none whatsoever. A movie doesn't need to be on BD-50 to be of high quality.

[supersix4]

no it doesnt but having 50gb's to deal with pq, audio quality, extras is way more then the amount given to an hd-dvd which means when they are able to use that much space for everything its there as appossed to having to upgrade new players,movies,exc. like you would eventually have to do with hd-dvd

[DrinkMore]

I have to agree with some here. They may not have been a need to go to a 50gig BD to start. I have Cruel Intentions and it is a very nice transfer. Superb. Would it have looked better on a 50gig BD? Doubt it. Plus, there were not many extras if any at all.

[supersix4]

i ment for when new better hd tv's come out (if thats possible) and when they need to produce the quailty for that blu-rays will be there dvd's and such will not ..

[GasCat]

It could be a clever way to market things. Release it later with a higher bit-rate on a 50 disc.

[Chad Varnadore]

I haven't looked at BSM or Flatliners yet. But CI has a capable bit budget. It's not bit starved like VC-1 is doing.