GB/hr from newer DVDs

It used to be that you could get a 135 minute movie on a single layer DVD.
Lately, I've noticed that almost all commercial DVDs run to 2 layers, and it
seems that even movies under 2 hours consume more than one layer. My guess
is that a movie that will take more than one layer when all the previews and
other extras are added in, is subjected to less compression since there is
no reason to economize on space.

Ex: The Odessa Files runs 130 minutes and fits on a single layer DVD. The
Queen runs less than 120 minutes, but there are so many previews and "Coming
soon to DVD" segments that a 2-layer disc is required. Since the movie
itself runs over 5GB, I have to assume that they gave the quality a bump up
simply because the space was available.

Does this sound reasonable?

Norm Strong

<normanstrong@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ZKGdnaIgeYdd6JrVnZ2dnUVZ_hSdnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
> It used to be that you could get a 135 minute movie on a single layer DVD.
> Lately, I've noticed that almost all commercial DVDs run to 2 layers, and
> it seems that even movies under 2 hours consume more than one layer. My
> guess is that a movie that will take more than one layer when all the
> previews and other extras are added in, is subjected to less compression
> since there is no reason to economize on space.
>
> Ex: The Odessa Files runs 130 minutes and fits on a single layer DVD.
> The Queen runs less than 120 minutes, but there are so many previews and
> "Coming soon to DVD" segments that a 2-layer disc is required. Since the
> movie itself runs over 5GB, I have to assume that they gave the quality a
> bump up simply because the space was available.
>
> Does this sound reasonable?
>
> Norm Strong
In my experience its the norm for movies to take up more than one layer. It
maybe if there are no extras at all they add a little more compression and
ensure its single layer to simplify things.

normanstrong@comcast.net wrote:
> It used to be that you could get a 135 minute movie on a single layer DVD.
> Lately, I've noticed that almost all commercial DVDs run to 2 layers, and it
> seems that even movies under 2 hours consume more than one layer. My guess
> is that a movie that will take more than one layer when all the previews and
> other extras are added in, is subjected to less compression since there is
> no reason to economize on space.
>
> Ex: The Odessa Files runs 130 minutes and fits on a single layer DVD. The
> Queen runs less than 120 minutes, but there are so many previews and "Coming
> soon to DVD" segments that a 2-layer disc is required. Since the movie
> itself runs over 5GB, I have to assume that they gave the quality a bump up
> simply because the space was available.
>
> Does this sound reasonable?
>
> Norm Strong


You can check this for yourself, Norm. All my dvd players have a
display (on-screen) button which shows how much information is being
processed as the movie is being played (mega-bits per second).

2-layer good quality movies peak out at ~8 Mbps. This number jumps
around as different scenes are played. On my grain looking movies, the
Mpbs usually top out at ~5-6.

Run some single-layer/double-layer movies and see what you can see.

winf