I think the first few series of the R2 Friends are the edited versions (with 8 episodes per disc, 4 on each side), but I can't really judge. Certainly the most recent series to be released in the UK (series 7) has the 'ordinary' versions on one side of the disc and the longer ones on the other (4 episodes per disc). Since the number of episodes per disc was halved, this represents a major increase in expense for IMHO very little improvement in the quality of individual episodes.