Amazon Steps Up: Places Warnings on Double Sided DVD's (1 Viewer)

[smithb]

Originally Posted by Ockeghem

Side note: Has anyone ever had a skipping or freezing problem with single-sided discs? I have not. I'd be interested to hear if these problems exist at all with single-sided discs.

Yes, the third disk in my "Man with a Camera" set is single sided and made a rumbling sound when playing like it was slightly off balance while spinning. My standard player skipped and froze in spots. It was too late to return it but I was able to burn a DVD-R as a backup to watch and keep for the future. I recall one of my "Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" disks making a similar sound but playable in this case. These were both probably dual layer though. So there are times when even single sided disks can be error prone.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by smithb



Yes, the third disk in my "Man with a Camera" set is single sided and made a rumbling sound when playing like it was slightly off balance while spinning. My standard player skipped and froze in spots. It was too late to return it but I was able to burn a DVD-R as a backup to watch and keep for the future. I recall one of my "Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" disks making a similar sound but playable in this case. These were both probably dual layer though. So there are times when even single sided disks can be error prone.

Well, I think the more compression a single disc has, the more trouble-prone it can be. Some of those Sony discs crammed 9 episodes of a sitcom onto one disc...some of my Jeffersons discs had a hard time with playback.

Amazon is giving out this warning, but they are also very good about replacing damaged or unplayable discs. I ordered the Snow White BluRay...the "bonus" disc didn't play at all, and they sent a replacement. This time...the movie disc didn't play. So I simply took the movie disc from my first set, the bonus disc from the second set, and sent the crummy ones back to amazon. Let them yell at Disney...amazon has far more clout in this regard than I do.

Remember--it was Walmart who was behind all that trouble a couple years ago when China was shipping toys with lead paint in 'em. If amazon can get these dumber dvd manufacturers to step up production of more reliable discs and packaging, then God bless them. Sony & Warners are the worst offenders when it comes to packaging problems...CBS/Paramount seems to have the right idea with their slimmer packages. Maybe they have the best idea.

 

[kemcha]

The problem is that the more content studios place on DVD's the lower the quality of the DVD's. DVD's can only contain about 4.7GB of space. Studios are able to get around this by compressing the video content to such a degree that certain DVD players cannot read the information on those disks and that's why these double sided DVD's have a tendency to skip because of this horrible compression scheme.

What makes it worse is that then the studios decide to squeeze other content such as behind the scenes, deleted scenes and whatnot. Standard DVD's are just not designed for that kind of space and I'm surprised that they haven't run into this problem with blu rays, even though I suspect that it's bound to become a problem for the future of that format.

At any rate, Sony is horrible at this. Just one look at their releases for All in the Family, Jeffersons, Good Times is just proof of that.

 

[smithb]

Thinking back, in my case with the "Man with a Camera" the disk was defintely a dual layer since it took me two DVD-R's to burn the contents. So I don't believe compression was an issue since it only contained four 30 minute epsiodes per layer.

 

[Ockeghem]

Originally Posted by kemcha

The problem is that the more content studios place on DVD's the lower the quality of the DVD's. DVD's can only contain about 4.7GB of space. Studios are able to get around this by compressing the video content to such a degree that certain DVD players cannot read the information on those disks and that's why these double sided DVD's have a tendency to skip because of this horrible compression scheme.

What makes it worse is that then the studios decide to squeeze other content such as behind the scenes, deleted scenes and whatnot. Standard DVD's are just not designed for that kind of space and I'm surprised that they haven't run into this problem with blu rays, even though I suspect that it's bound to become a problem for the future of that format.

At any rate, Sony is horrible at this. Just one look at their releases for All in the Family, Jeffersons, Good Times is just proof of that.

Kemcha,

Can you elaborate a bit on All In the Family? I just purchased the first two seasons of this series (on single-sided discs), and thus far the discs have been fine. Maybe I bought a reissue (or a second edition, if you will) of the series?

 

[smithb]

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley

Well, I think the more compression a single disc has, the more trouble-prone it can be. Some of those Sony discs crammed 9 episodes of a sitcom onto one disc...some of my Jeffersons discs had a hard time with playback.

Are those dual layer or single layer disks? I've typically found that four 25 minute episodes per layer is usually okay (eight for a dual layer disk). Above that and the quality does usually begin to suffer.

However, most of my examples are from b/w shows and not color. While I'm not sure technically why, For me, b/w shows always appear more watchable then color when squeezed into the same amount of space.

 

[kemcha]

Ock, I'm not talking about single sided disks, but, generally speaking, the more episodes, the more content they squeeze onto a DVD, the more the quality suffers and the DVD suffers. Just try and burn your own disk with Nero by adding more than fouor episodes, you'll notice the "quality" indicator will warn you about video compression if you try and place too much content onto a DVD.

The same is said for DVD's manufactured by studios. They have the same problems.

The more content that you put on a DVD, the more the DVD suffers.

 

[KMR]

Kemcha, you claim that a DVD can hold only 4.7 GB. Are you aware that single-sided discs can hold 8.54 GB if they are dual-layered (and I would guess that probably the vast majority of single-sided discs currently released are dual-layered), and that is sufficient to hold two average full-length feature movies, or at least four episodes of a one-hour TV series, or at least eight episodes of a half-hour TV series, with no problem.

 

[kemcha]

KMR, the problem with double layered disks is that there is a triggering pause on those disks. However, what you're not taking into consideration is that the menu screens, animated menus and bare bones special features also take up additional space. This doesn't take into consideration the various commentaries in selected episodes and so forth. Generally speaking, DVD's are perfect for placing four hour length episodes per disk but once you go over that, the video compression begins to suffer and you start to get the kind of video quality that is notorious with those multi-movie DVD sets that Mill Creek Entertainment releases and I've bought one or two of those and the quality sucks.

 

[KMR]

The pause on dual-layered discs is a very minor annoyance *at worst*, and is often not even noticeable at all (especially when they take care to split the layers at an unobtrusive point in the program).

I *was* taking into consideration menu screens, etc. I concede that I was *not* taking into consideration substantial special features, because what I mentioned were the movies, or the episodes--not special features; however, most major studio releases put major special features on separate discs, or put fewer TV episodes on the discs that contain the major special features. And many of the double-feature discs (or quadruple-feature 2-disc sets) leave out most of the special features, which are available on the single-movie editions. The space taken up by additional commentary tracks is usually quite negligible.

I wouldn't even begin to compare major studio releases with the budget companies such as Mill Creek.

 

[kemcha]

Kevin, it's not negligible. Commentaries take up as much space as the audio on the main episode/feature. Commentaries, deleted scenes, special look at the series, these are common additions to each disk of a particular season set. I'm looking at my Battlestar Galactica TV sets as an example of this.

I don't even know how we got here.

I stand by my original ascertation. That Amazon, by adding the information to their DVD listings if a release is double-sided, is a very good thing. It's obvious that people like to argue just to argue, and I plan on giving Amazon some great feedback on this new method of listing their DVD information. I'd rather have a retailer list that information than not to list it at all.

This is really a big win for consumers and gives them the choice on whether to buy it or not.

 

[bmasters9]

Originally Posted by KMR

I *was* taking into consideration menu screens, etc. I concede that I was *not* taking into consideration substantial special features, because what I mentioned were the movies, or the episodes--not special features; however, most major studio releases put major special features on separate discs, or put fewer TV episodes on the discs that contain the major special features.

That part where you said that most releases have fewer episodes on discs with bonuses has been true with several of mine, as in "Dallas" #4 (two episodes on the back of Disc 4, plus the "Return to Southfork" bonus), "Hawaii Five-O" #1 (two episodes on Disc 7, plus the "Memories of Hawaii Five-O" bonus), and "Star Trek: Voyager" #3 (two on Disc 7, plus the various featurettes/documentaries). As a matter of fact, this was apparently done with the remaining "Voyager" seasons (two episodes on the last disc, plus bonuses); it was not done with #1, where the bonuses had an entire disc to themselves.

 

[kemcha]

Um, 99% of the time, on a season DVD set, there are usually the last 2 episodes of the season on the last disk because there weren't enough episodes to bring it to four. Most seasons last about 22 episodes and the studio packs the last disk with special features and bonus content.

 

[smithb]

Originally Posted by kemcha

I stand by my original ascertation. That Amazon, by adding the information to their DVD listings if a release is double-sided, is a very good thing. It's obvious that people like to argue just to argue, and I plan on giving Amazon some great feedback on this new method of listing their DVD information. I'd rather have a retailer list that information than not to list it at all.

This is really a big win for consumers and gives them the choice on whether to buy it or not.

Interesting, because most of us just don't happen to share your enthusiasm as to the benefits of Amazon posting this additional information, the rest of us just "like to argue to argue". You've posted in this thread more then anyone else, repeatedly defending your position. People are just responding to your assertions and not buying it. Instead of blaming others for where we are at, maybe you should just accept some credit for beating a dead horse.

 

[mdnitoil]

Not for nothing here, but the quantity of material being stuffed onto a DVD has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the actual disc. You can try to stuff 1000 hours of content onto a DVD. The video will look like complete crap, but a well manufactured disc will play that 1000 hours of complete crap faithfully every time. Two completely unrelated issues.

 

[jamoon2006]

Originally Posted by smithb



Interesting, because most of us just don't happen to share your enthusiasm as to the benefits of Amazon posting this additional information, the rest of us just "like to argue to argue". You've posted in this thread more then anyone else, repeatedly defending your position. People are just responding to your assertions and not buying it. Instead of blaming others for where we are at, maybe you should just accept some credit for beating a dead horse.

This is par for the course for him, if he's who I think he is...

 

[kemcha]

Smith, would you rather Amazon and other retailers to not post that information and let their consumers "blind buy" DVD sets without knowing whether or not they are double sided? I don't see what the complaints are about.

Everyone is arguing the point that if it's a double sided DVD then there must be an automatic manufacturing defect affected by it.

 

[smithb]

Kemcha,

I would contend that for the typical consumer, whether a DVD set contains double sided disks or not carries very little to no weight in their decision making, unless they have already experienced a problem. So why not just spell it out in the notice. Why force someone to experience the issue first so that they can try to avoid them later.

When I mentioned this to co-workers not a one knew what was significant about the DVDs being double-sided (i.e., average consumers and not ones that would frequent forums like this)

I've never argued that double-sided disks are automatically error prone. I've only noted that there seems to be more complaints about these then others (DVD-18's, not double sided, single layer disks). However, I could be wrong, maybe people also have issues with double sided single layer disks as well.

So to me, a true warning worth merit and discussion would be somthing like:

"This set contains Dual-Layer Double Sided disks (DVD-18's), which have been to known to have playback issues in some DVD players"

or if the issues is true for all double sided disks then:

"This set contains Double Sided disks, which have been to known to have playback issues in some DVD players"
In any case, what I stated above is a warning. Had they put something like that, I would be with you all the way. Otherwise, in my opinion just stating they are double sided with no straight forward warning as to why they are stating this is pretty weak. Again, my opinion.

 

[kemcha]

If Amazon knew that the disks were defective, they wouldn't be selling them. Another is that studios do not mark on their sets which are DVD-18's. Not only that, but not all double sided DVD's are defective.

 

[LeoA]

No one ever said they were defective, just that they're more prone to give issues to consumers. Rather or not it's because of the design of the disc, poor manufacturing, or many DVD player's being poorly constructed and not fully meeting the specifications of the DVD Forum, doesn't matter.

The point is that a consumer viewing such a disc is more likely to experience playback issues, and we'd of preferred to see Amazon add that disclaimer rather than just state that they're double sided. The current information they provide only assist consumers that have already had issues with previous double sided releases.

I highly doubt from my personal experiences and reading impressions of many others that we're wrong and these are just isolated incidents.