What's new

New use for branching? (1 Viewer)

JulianK

Supporting Actor
Joined
Oct 3, 2000
Messages
843
The Malcolm in the Middle box set uses branching for the commentary tracks.
For example, if you select the commentary option on the first disc, it plays the whole of the Pilot (which has a commentary track for its entire duration), and then about half an hour of clips from the rest of the episodes.
Is this the first time branching has been used in this way? In my experience it's more usual for a disc with a patchy commentary to simply revert back to the film mix while the subject isn't speaking, or the viewer has to endure long periods of silence. This new technique is much better, although it does leave you feeling vaguely disorientated, as the disc hops from episode to episode!
 

Randy A Salas

Screenwriter
Joined
Apr 25, 2002
Messages
1,348
The Ben-Hur DVD has a similar option. Charlton Heston's commentary doesn't run during the whole movie, so when he's done talking about a particular segment, an icon appears prompting you to chapter-skip to where his comments begin again. I believe this was the first disc to do it.
 

Damin J Toell

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2001
Messages
3,762
Location
Brooklyn, NY
Real Name
Damin J. Toell
The Ben-Hur DVD has a similar option. Charlton Heston's commentary doesn't run during the whole movie, so when he's done talking about a particular segment, an icon appears prompting you to chapter-skip to where his comments begin again. I believe this was the first disc to do it.
That sounds like it's probably on a subtitle track rather than seamless branching.

DJ
 

Christian Preischl

Screenwriter
Joined
Oct 11, 2001
Messages
1,374
Real Name
Christian Preischl
Hi,

unless I'm missing something it doesn't really sound like braching to me. It just sounds like the DVD skips to an extra title track once the pilot episode is over instead of going to the menu.

When the disc starts hopping from episode to episode, have you checked if it is in fact jumping to different tracks, or is it just one track that has the collection of all the clips they're commenting on?

Chris
 

JulianK

Supporting Actor
Joined
Oct 3, 2000
Messages
843
When the disc starts hopping from episode to episode, have you checked if it is in fact jumping to different tracks, or is it just one track that has the collection of all the clips they're commenting on?
Yes, it's definitely moving from track to track. The clips with the commentary also have the other audio tracks available, so they are simply extracts from the main programme. It's quite a clever technique.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Forum statistics

Threads
356,814
Messages
5,123,701
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top