"Frankenstein" (1931) (Universal Cinema Classics, Region 2) and its bit-rate... (1 Viewer)

[shazzerman]

I dusted off my Region 2 Frankenstein" (I'm in Ireland) for a viewing and was again taken aback by how brilliant it remains. It was my first time watching it on my PS3 and I noticed that the bit-rate rarely dipped below 8 Mbps; most of the dvds I play on the PS3 rarely go above 5 Mbps, and that includes recent releases. My question, for all you members with more knowledge on these matters than myself (probably 99% of you), is why can't every dvd have a decent bit-rate of 8 and above? If a film made in 1931 can be transferred to dvd with that kind of bit-rate, why can't they all? I'm sure there is a simple reason...

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Space.


FRANKENSTEIN (1931) runs 70 minutes. A dual layer DVD can hold in the neighborhood of almost 8 GB. Remember, menus and bonus features and alternate soundtracks take up space as well. The FRANKENSTEIN disc you have is probably dual layer, like most DVD releases in this day and age. There just isn't enough space on one DVD to encode films with an average length of 2 hours or more AND include any bonus features. Also, just because the bit-rate is high doesn't mean the quality will be any better. I do encoding myself and sometimes can find little to no discernible difference between certain bit-rates, depending of course on how clean my master is. With a film of FRANKENSTEIN's age, perhaps the high bit-rate was needed so that the grain and dirt wouldn't turn into a big pixilated mess.

 

[shazzerman]

Of course... I feel entirely inadequate now. Thanks for clearing that up anyway.