Could a worse DVD cut-off point be made?

[Poggle]

They should've cut it after the "I mean dat - be easy on da girl" line.

[Kurug3n]

the reason it switches at that moment is because its the same part where it switched when it was shown at the Cannes film festival.

[moviesceleton]

the reason it switches at that moment is because its the same part where it switched when it was shown at the Cannes film festival.

They needed to change it there too? So why the intermission isn't there?

[mal247]

The statistics of the DVDs I have are:

DVD 2 - 6,854,604,800 bytes

DVD 1 - 6,288,130,048 bytes - approx 1hr 55 (115 mins)

Mathematically there appears to be at least  566,474,752 bytes space available on DVD 1 which equates to a minimum of 10 mins 20 secs.

Whilst it may be stretching things to include on DVD 1 everything up to the intermission (39:22 mins on DVD 2), DVD 1 could easily include going for a swim (2:57 mins).

DVD 2 would then start with Noodles watching TV in Fat Moe's in 1968

 

[dave jenkins]

Robert Harris, the man responsible for the film restorations of Vertigo, My Fair Lady, and Lawrence of Arabia, addressed this issue many moons ago in his column over at the digital bits. This is what he said (http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/robertharris/harris060203.html):

 

A few notes on the transfer:

The Good...

Both pictorially and sonically, a perfect transfer in the proper aspect ratio with beautifully scaled colors and black level. This is a high bit rate transfer, equivalent to Sony's SuperBit.

The Not So Bad...

One anomaly may disturb some, while I didn't have a real problem with it, considering the alternative...

There was apparently a plan in place to divide the film with the first disc ending with the Intermission and the second picking up thereafter.

Part One is approximately 160 minutes. Had Warner encoded the discs so that 160 minutes was on disc one as planned, it would have necessitated a lowering of the bit rate. Even though printed materials lead one to believe that this is the case, it is incorrect.

Disc One ends at the two hour point, in the middle of a sequence. There is no "painless" break point in this area of the film. Disc Two begins with the end of that sequence, continues an additional forty minutes to the Intermission, and then goes on to Part Two of the film.

Although not what one might wish for in a perfect world, taking into consideration the look and textures which have been accomplished with the transfer and compression, I would have made the same decision rather than to lower quality. I firmly believe that the correct decision has been made.

The Ugly...

Not a thing.

The issue is not merely what the will fit on the disk, but what what will fit and still look good.

[mal247]

Thank you Dave for this information - I read that there was approx 2 gigabytes spare space on DVD1.  I would certainly prefer the present split to a DVD with less quality and wherever the split is made, someone will no doubt find criticism.

Adding a further 3 minutes to DVD1 could certainly be achieved with no reduction in quality but the transition between a car driven into the water by Noodles and a burnt out car being soaked by water and foam on TV may be less apparent to the viewer.

 

[dave jenkins]

Adding a further 3 minutes to DVD1 could certainly be achieved with no reduction in quality but the transition between a car driven into the water by Noodles and a burnt out car being soaked by water and foam on TV may be less apparent to the viewer.

That's a really good point. When I saw the film in the cinema in 1985, the lights came up right after the car went in the water (there was no official intermission) and 20 minutes later, after the potty break etc., when things started up again I certainly didn't register the match-cut that was intended. It wasn't until the DVD came out that I noticed it.