Text 9666, 40 rader
Skriven 2006-12-31 00:47:01 av rob.ocelot@gmail.com (13083.babylon5)
   Kommentar till text 9660 av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (13077.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: OT: Star Trek DVD
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> You know, I see this stated in various places from time to time, and I
> don't understand why.  A number of DVDs use seamless branching and it
> works just fine.  A few (off the top of my head) that I know use it just
> fine are the new Lord of the Rings DVDs (with both theatrical and
> extended cuts of each movie) and the special edition of Terminator 2.

Early DVD players had a lot of problems with layer changes and seamless
branching and I think those early experiences have sort of been stuck
in the collective consciousness.  Newer players are much more tolerant
of these things.

That being said, I think the main reason why you don't see a feature as
useful as seamless branching more often is that it's tricky to pull off
without a jarring discontinuity in either picture or sound.  Audio in
particular is a problem because a lot of times you have to go back to
the composers to score tracks for the alternate/extra footage *and* at
the same time make it so that the music links up both with and without
the branch.  More often than not the branch points are selected earlier
in the film than you'd think just so they can get it in between
background/incidental music. In short, it's an editors nightmare and a
lot of work to boot.

That T2 release just went overboard with the special features and used
pretty much every DVD-spec feature (other than the never-implemented
auto pan and scan, which is probably a good thing).  T2 even had the
scripts in .pdf form and the entire film in HD Mpeg 4 on the disk (only
playable by computer at the time).

Most studios now just seem to throw the alternate cut of the film onto
another disk and be done with it.

I have to chuckle when I see them touting all of those cool features
that the next-gen DVD succesors will have.  HD-DVD has an interesting
feature where you can digitize your face and put it on an actor in the
film, or choose the colour of a car and every time you see that
particular car it will be the the same colour.  I bet that will get
used a total of twice; once on demo disks and once on an early release.
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