Can Blu-ray do custom seamless branching?

[stockstar1138]

I was just curious, with seamless branching on blu-ray I know I could have for example the theatrical, directors, and extended cuts on it (CEOT3K is a good example). Now, lets say there is a scene I really like in the directors cut, but overall I prefer the theatrical, could I take that scene and only that scene from the director's cut and insert it into the theatrical making my own personal edition of the movie, to suit my desire?

[MRay]

Hmmm, good question. That would be cool.

[BStecke]

I would assume it would be able to do this . . . it would probably be the next step of that feature where you can bookmark your favorite scenes.

[CptGreedle]

I do not see why not. Although it would be up to how the studio programmed the disc, the BD-j should be fully capable of allowing you to make your own personal edit of the film like that with seamless branching.
I doubt it will happen anytime soon, if at all, but it is an interesting thought.

[DetroitSportsFan]

That would be interesting...

[Petra_Kalbrain]

That idea might push the boundaries of copyright and artistic intent. Essentially you are asking if you would be able to re-edit the movie to your liking. It is for this reason that I can't see the studios allowing for this type of feature to be implemented. If you start deleting/inserting scenes you mess around with the artistic intent of the director.

[bdizzle]

Newbie question:
What is seemless branching?

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by bdizzle

Newbie question:
What is seemless branching?

Seemless branching refers to the ability of creating multiple versions of a stream of content without having to put multiple copies of the content on the same storage device. Essentially, with movies, the programming will remove or insert designated content based on what the user selects as their preferred viewing experience.

A good example of this is 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind'. On the Blu-ray release there appears to be 3 full length Hi-Def versions of the film on 1 disc. This is, in fact, totally incorrect as it would be impossible to do so without SEVERELY comprimising the content quality (video compression = blocking/artifacting/colour washing/etc, and lossy audio). The programming of the disc will modify the content streamed to the tv/receiver based on which version of the film that you have selected to watch. It will cut the scenes out that were removed for that edit of the film and add scenes in that were added to that edit of the film. So, effectively, it applies 1 full length Hi-Def version of the film and only the appropriate scenes seperately; thus, saving massive amounts of disc space for extra features and/or higher quality video/audio.

It's sort of a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' situation, but controlled by the fact that the material has origins within the context of the Director's artistic intentions behind each version of a film.

[Brian Cash]

yeah that would be cool

[Johk]

Since Return to House on Haunted Hill lets you select what happens in the movie, I guess this is an example that it is possible...

Also there is already a feature that lets you tag your favorite scenes in a movie and play them afterwards (I don't remember what it is called)

But I am not sure that many people would use that feature...

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

That idea might push the boundaries of copyright and artistic intent. Essentially you are asking if you would be able to re-edit the movie to your liking. It is for this reason that I can't see the studios allowing for this type of feature to be implemented. If you start deleting/inserting scenes you mess around with the artistic intent of the director.

Not necessarily. Programming seamless branching is like selecting your music preference of tracks and their sequence on a CD. It actually does not alter the original content, but changes the way you look at it. On DVD I bookmark musical and dance sequences of many of my favorite films and just watch those sequences long after the drama ceases to interest me. Are the movie studios now going to come after me for just watching certain scenes?

[Salinger]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Seemless branching refers to the ability of creating multiple versions of a stream of content without having to put multiple copies of the content on the same storage device. Essentially, with movies, the programming will .. <snipped>

Thanks so much! I wondered too what this was, and never got around to asking. Great explanation.

[JadedRaverLA]

Putting aside artistic concerns, it would be easy to allow programming of "chapters" to allow the user to sort of create their own film... but there have to be pre-defined cut-points, etc. Added to that, sometimes different cuts will have different musical arrangements (as the length of the scene has changed, etc) which wouldn't work well at all in a mix-and-match environment. Also, it would be next to impossible for everything to be "seamless" as seamless branching requires a temporary lowering of the bitrate right before the cut-point in order to allow the laser to move to the correct position on this disc.

I doubt we'll see anything like this used much due to the programming difficulties in making things "seamless" and dealing with the potential audio matching issues I mentioned.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by Kristin Simard

Not necessarily. Programming seamless branching is like selecting your music preference of tracks and their sequence on a CD. It actually does not alter the original content, but changes the way you look at it. On DVD I bookmark musical and dance sequences of many of my favorite films and just watch those sequences long after the drama ceases to interest me. Are the movie studios now going to come after me for just watching certain scenes?

I disagree. Music is an entirely different medium. Music tracks are intended to be listened to as a single entity. From start to finish a song is heard the way it was meant to be heard by the creators. Now, if bands started allowing the listener to flip verses and chorus order around within an individual song, then your arguement would hold validity. 1 song track is the artistic equivalent of an entire film. That's why albums are called "compilations." They are collections of artistic pieces. A film itself is a single artistic unit.

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

Putting aside artistic concerns, it would be easy to allow programming of "chapters" to allow the user to sort of create their own film... but there have to be pre-defined cut-points, etc. Added to that, sometimes different cuts will have different musical arrangements (as the length of the scene has changed, etc) which wouldn't work well at all in a mix-and-match environment. Also, it would be next to impossible for everything to be "seamless" as seamless branching requires a temporary lowering of the bitrate right before the cut-point in order to allow the laser to move to the correct position on this disc.

I doubt we'll see anything like this used much due to the programming difficulties in making things "seamless" and dealing with the potential audio matching issues I mentioned.

This is true. I'd be happy with just being able to program scenes from various sources (the film, the alternate takes, outtakes, etc.) It wouldn't have to be entirely seamless. Audio incongruities would no doubt result. This for me would be more to study sequences than to watch it for entertainment.

[bajor27]

I've been wanting something like this for some time. Nothing fancy. I don't want to re-arrange a whole movie, just be able to pick and choose from the extra scenes that are available.

It should work well for certain movies, and may not for others, but I hope people are at least looking into making it a possibility.

[CptGreedle]

Like I said.... physically this should be possible with BD-j and a good programmer. Actually, it will be up to what the studios choose to add on their discs. I doubt you will ever see a movie with the ability to re-organize the edits, although they may add an extra to give you some kind f idea what it is like to play with a scene (they did that on DVDs like Final Fantasy: Spirits Within). However giving the user the ability to seamless branch the entire film in any order they want is not likely to happen. At least not with major motion pictures. Perhaps some more independent or experimental discs might someday, but good luck finding anything like that.\

[CptGreedle]

Picking an choosing scenes might not be as bad an idea. If you can have a list of scenes to add back into the film, you could choose to.. say.. leave out the deleted sex scene if you have kids watching, or only add the deleted action scenes. That is something that could happen... could.
But it is more likely there will only be a director's cut and the theatrical cut instead.

[Galley]

Are the extended music scenes in "Across The Universe" utilizing seamless branching?

[WickyWoo]

Yes it could, but it's unlikely it would be allowed, especially with DGA contracts, because directors have control over the edits of their movies, and don't want Joe in DeMoines deciding that

That's part of what the CleanFlicks lawsuit was about