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Tom Hagen wrote:Well considering that one of the DVDs was essentially 30 minutes of Bergman introductions to his films, and that two more were the TV cut (which will probably land on one Blu), it shouldn't be too difficult.

I didn't think the TV cut in 1080p could fit on one Blu, clocking in at over 5 hours.

Perhaps both cuts, together, over two discs (ala the pre-Blu Apocalypse Now dvd release). Either way, the special features and documentary can easily fit onto one disc.

Tom Hagen wrote:Perhaps both cuts, together, over two discs (ala the pre-Blu Apocalypse Now dvd release). Either way, the special features and documentary can easily fit onto one disc.

the pre-Blu Apocalypse Now dvd release used seamless branching to save space, just like the LotR Limited Edition DVDs. I don't think Criterion will use seamless branching to do F&A.

Could be theatrical on 1 disc & TV split over 2 discs with all the bonus features distributed among the 3 discs.

Indeed, it is interesting, since it has around 700 minutes of video whatsoever to fit into 3 discs.
That may be slighly too much.

Wouldn't this work?
Disc One - Theatrical Version
Disc Two - TV version Pt 1 + Making of *
Disc Three - TV version Pt 2 + other extras

* or simply putting the making of with whichever 'half' of the Television version has the shorter running time - this would be 265 minutes tops, which is way less that they squeezed onto the Last Emperor Blu-Ray, for example.

So zero review of this yet?

andyli wrote:I don't think Criterion will use seamless branching to do F&A.

Criterion doesn't like seamless branching because some people (or some players) in the past had trouble playing discs with it properly.

I forgot where I read/heard this, but it was directly from someone who worked for Criterion.

zedz wrote:Wouldn't this work?
Disc One - Theatrical Version
Disc Two - TV version Pt 1 + Making of *
Disc Three - TV version Pt 2 + other extras

* or simply putting the making of with whichever 'half' of the Television version has the shorter running time - this would be 265 minutes tops, which is way less that they squeezed onto the Last Emperor Blu-Ray, for example.

This would have worked perfectly, since extra features files are smaller, thus leaving more room on each disc for the main feature to breathe.

They probably thought it was more beneficial to make the television viewable without disc swapping rather than giving each part marginally more disc space. I'm not too worried about it and I'm sure it will look great.

stevewhamola wrote:They probably thought it was more beneficial to make the television viewable without disc swapping rather than giving each part marginally more disc space.

Surely the TV series format (i.e. complete with bookending opening and closing credits for each episode) makes it entirely natural and reasonable to split it across more than one disc?

Yes that's a perfectly valid line of reasoning. But even if the television cut was divided between two discs they'd put special features on each disc freeing up maybe a few gigs more for the main feature. Six of one half a dozen of the other I'd say.

He doesn't mention any problems with the TV version being too compressed, though the bitrate is significantly smaller (17.99 vs. 28.48 for the theatrical version). At least they seem to be getting as much out of it as they can for putting it all on one disc. (It takes us 48.7 GBs.)

swo17 wrote:He doesn't mention any problems with the TV version being too compressed, though the bitrate is significantly smaller (17.99 vs. 28.48).

DVD Beaver wrote:Both Criterion feature discs show nice grain with a shade more noise on the longer TV version.

But that could just be the source material.

Anyone find it odd he lists the Criterion Blu as region free?

knives wrote:Anyone find it odd he lists the Criterion Blu as region free?

Yup. That would be a first, wouldn't it?

It would be the first time CC released a region-free Blu-ray, but not the first time Gary has made that mistake.

swo17 wrote:It would be the first time CC released a region-free Blu-ray, but not the first time Gary has made that mistake.

Now Gary's gonna think I'm Bud Abbot to your Lou Costello, setting you up for the punch line (pretty literally in this case).

Wow! The Blu-ray is so much more colorful than the DVD. Couple that with the obvious improvement in detail and this has become a definite upgrade! As if it wasn't already...

I re-watched the TV version last week and I remember finding the colors a bit dull. I haven't seen the film theatrically, so I can't say for sure how it's supposed to look, but the Blu-ray does seem a lot more pleasing to the eye.

The Criterion announcement lists this as a single Blu-Ray disc, so are all 5 DVDs squeezed onto a single Blu-Ray ?

No there are three discs as it says on the Criterion page.

knives wrote:No there are three discs as it says on the Criterion page.

Many thanks, I was looking at the wrong page where it says "Number of Discs: 1".

Got my copy in the mail a whole 3 days in advance. :-$