DVD9 - Industry Standard for TV on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Is it true that most TV show releases on DVD use DVD9 discs?

This would certainly be the case with shows like Star Trek (The Original Series) and Mission: Impossible, as there are at most four one-hour episodes per disc.

There are some releases, though, that use the cheaper DVD5 discs (up to two hours per disc). My Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch DVD is one of those, as there are at most four half-hours per disc.

~Ben

 

[jcroy]

Is it true that most TV show releases on DVD use DVD9 discs?

In practice this seems to largely be the case, for pragmatic reasons. Not necessarily a de facto standard.

A more compact efficient solution would be putting an entire tv season of 20-25+ episodes in 480i ntsc (or pal) quality video, onto a 50 gigabytes sized bluray disc.

 

[jcroy]

But alas, something like 20-25+ episodes in SD resolution on a single 50 gigabtes size bluray disc, would probably end up a failure on the market today.

So that's probably why the 6 disc dvd season sets with 20-25+ episodes has become the pragmatic standard for recent/current tv show season sets.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

But alas, something like 20-25+ episodes in SD resolution on a single 50 gigabtes size bluray disc, would probably end up a failure on the market today.

So that's probably why the 6 disc dvd season sets with 20-25+ episodes has become the pragmatic standard for recent/current tv show season sets.

I wonder, too, if for those shows that had more than 32 half-hours per season (for example: The Honeymooners, which had 39 episodes in its only season on CBS), if they would be split up into two volumes?

The original Twilight Zone had 36 episodes in its first (1959-60) and last (1963-64) seasons, and had 37 in its third season (1961-62). The fourth season (early 1963) had 18 1-hours. So we would be looking at:

Seasons one, five (36 episodes):
(Volume 1)
Disc 1: episodes 1 to 6
Disc 2: episodes 7 to 12
Disc 3: episodes 13 to 18

(Volume 2)
Disc 1: episodes 19 to 24
Disc 2: episodes 25 to 30
Disc 3: episodes 31 to 36

Season two (1960-61, 29 episodes):
Disc 1: episodes 1 to 6
Disc 2: episodes 7 to 12
Disc 3: episodes 13 to 18
Disc 4: episodes 19 to 24
Disc 5: episodes 25 to 29

Season three (1961-62, 37 episodes):
(Volume 1)
Disc 1: episodes 1 to 7
Disc 2: episodes 8 to 13
Disc 3: episodes 14 to 19

(Volume 2)
Disc 1: episodes 20 to 25
Disc 2: episodes 26 to 31
Disc 3: episodes 32 to 37

Season four (1963, 18 1-hour episodes):
Disc 1: episodes 1 to 4
Disc 2: episodes 5 to 8
Disc 3: episodes 9 to 12
Disc 4: episodes 13 to 15
Disc 5: episodes 16 to 18

But if there are six DVDs per season set for the hour-long programs (Gunsmoke for seasons 16-20, and most Hawaii Five-O sets), then for the half-hour shows theoretically 36 to 48 half-hours could be available (six to eight half-hour episodes per disc). Gunsmoke's first six seasons (from 1955-61) were half-hours, so in those cases a single six-disc DVD set could have been workable as it was a well-known program that ran for 20 seasons.

~Ben

 

[jcroy]

How and/or why a particular season set is authored, may very well also reflect on what the standard was at the time and how things were done at a particular home video division of a studio. Changes in management and/or outsourcing the authoring, likely plays a role too.

For example, the "Alien Nation" complete series dvd set had six double-sided DVD10 flipper discs. Each side of a DVD10 disc could hold almost 5 gigabytes of data, which was authored to have two episodes per side. I have no idea why Fox authored this dvd set in this very non-conventional manner.

There were a few other Fox released season sets which were released in a similar manner with DVD10 flipper discs, such as the first four seasons of Reba, season1 of The White Shadow, The Addams Family, etc ..