A little talk on modern DVD's over the early ones

[Danny]

So im starting to burn my stuff onto discs for my portfolio and showreel, im making dvd's for companies and so lately ive gotten really interested in the prodcution of dvd's menus, screens and whathave you. first off i notcied that in after effects you can make a proffessional dvd in under 3 hours, and the rates people charge for only 3 hours work is damn near extortionate, but i get the idea on how there put together. So just to see i got that buffy box set i got a while back that even my mac doesnt recognise the region, though it does tell you it was made in the u.s on monday the 23rd of october 2000, and a copy of resident evil extinction. i opened up the discs files to compare what an early one and an old one would look like. boy is it surprising. buffy is a complete shambles, you can tell they were jsut getting into dvd box sets then, theres stray files and routes to nothing everywere, extra coding for buttons wich dont exist and its arranged like its been hurridly dragged and dropped onto a memory stick before a power cut. Resi 3 is the exact opposite, 2 folders for sound and video and the links and pictures contained neatly therein. you allways think they havent changed much but the methods for putting information on the discs really has. seriously put a turn of the century dvd and a recent release in your pc and compre how there put together, it surprised me at least just how bad they used to be.

[MinionZombie]

Visually as well, dvd menus have changed a lot. I look back at The Thing and Mallrats, which are both Universal, and released several years ago...Universal were in a stage of insisting all their menus look the same and have stupid symbols all over the place, it's a rather "bleh" way of doing a menu. Ah mate, you should see the DVD for "Shatter Dead", they play stupidly long clips from the film at each menu, and if memory serves you CAN'T SKIP, merely fast forward if you're lucky. How stupid is that?

[bassman]

Visually as well, dvd menus have changed a lot. For the most part you're right, but there were a few early DVDs that had some kick ass menus. The original Ghostbusters CE dvd has a great 3d-ish menu that still today stands as one of the best i've ever seen. And I think that flick was one of Sony's earliest DVDs. Another that springs to mind is "Aliens". Not the 2 disc, but the original dvd. I actually like the original's menu better. It was a view from a marine's camera as he walks through the f*cked up hallways. Not much to it, but I tought it was fantastic. And on the topic of new dvds.....I have a DVD player that I paid alot for when they were still kind of new. Well, lately I'll get new dvds and it says that it can't read them. I don't think it's going to crap out on me because it plays my older DVDS fine. Just not newer releases. I know nothing about technology, but does this have something to do with the ways they're making them now?

[_liam_]

Yeah the original Alien & Aliens menus were great, with the Nostromo & HUD displays. Alien 3's was a bit of a letdown though - appropriately enough, some might say... That said, me and CF prefer the static old school menus to these new fangled ones, as I tend to leave things on the menu while i'm frittering on the internet, and the same looped bit of music/speech tends to drive me insane. Interesting thing - if you leave Die hard 2 on the main menu for ages (I mean like, 2+ hours) it eventually flips into crazy andy warhol style colour values for one cycle - blink and you'll miss it! Does anyone have any love for the old school WB dvds with the cardboard sleeve and plastic locking mechanism (like the first issue of The Matrix)? I love those, as far as i'm aware there hasn't been a better edition of The Exorcist - although it would have been cooler if they hadn't edited Mark Kermode out of "the fear of god"

[bassman]

Yeah the original Alien & Aliens menus were great, with the Nostromo & HUD displays. Alien 3's was a bit of a letdown though - appropriately enough, some might say... That said, me and CF prefer the static old school menus to these new fangled ones, as I tend to leave things on the menu while i'm frittering on the internet, and the same looped bit of music/speech tends to drive me insane. Interesting thing - if you leave Die hard 2 on the main menu for ages (I mean like, 2+ hours) it eventually flips into crazy andy warhol style colour values for one cycle - blink and you'll miss it! Does anyone have any love for the old school WB dvds with the cardboard sleeve and plastic locking mechanism (like the first issue of The Matrix)? I love those, as far as i'm aware there hasn't been a better edition of The Exorcist - although it would have been cooler if they hadn't edited Mark Kermode out of "the fear of god" I have those editions of Matrix and Exorcist. I don't really like them though. They get damaged too easily and it irritates the hell out of me when I'm trying to slide a dvd into it's spot on the rack and those plastic sides of those boxes keep it from going all the way in. I have to take out the cardboard case just so I can put in the regular dvd case with it at the same time. But, if I had to choose between those and these new plastic locking clips on the sides, I would go with the latter.

[MinionZombie]

lol, those cardboard cases - the DVD cases "of old", when the ancients were using DVDs. Those old school WB ones annoy me, they're a bit flimsy, and with other DVDs on my shelf I'm the same as bassman, they get stuck on those WB ones and it just annoys me as I have to fiddle around, lame. I think the presentation of the 2-disc Alien franchise dvds is better, it's slick and looks pretty good - however, indeed, the walking through the wrecked corridors on the original Aliens DVD was boss. One thing that can really make a DVD annoying is moving the selector around when choosing options. Sometimes it can just be a bitch, like you have to go down all the options to get to the very bottom one, rather than just pressing up on the first to get to the last - or if you can't select right, you have to go down a few to one immediately next to another option that's further over on the menu itself before you can select it - ease of choosing the options on screen is important. Bassman - I guess it's just your player being 'old' so-to-speak, for newer DVDs coming out anyway. Mine is still working fine, it's a superb Samsung that I got Xmas 2002 and it's still taking names like an educator, but now and then it'll come across a DVD that it doesn't like as much ... in that if you're constantly dipping in and out of a variety of special features (like on the R1 Superbad 2-discer, or the Summer Preview DVD that came with Total Film this month - the one that came out only yesterday for those of you who ain't subscribed ), then it'll eventually 'crash', and I'll have to open the drawer and then close it again to reboot the DVD. That's my only problem, and it's really random which DVDs it might be, must be down to the structure cos other DVDs I can be dipping in and out of a whole bunch of special features and be fine. Oh, the Mallrats R1 CE DVD (not the "X" anniversary one) doesn't do so well in my DVD player, I can't watch the film on my player cos the alternate video angle option logo thingy is constantly in the upper corner, and then at certain points when storyboards are available or some bollocks, it'll go all skippy/stuttery/forward-backwards unless I quickly fast forward and then back a few seconds ... proper lame ... so I just watch Mallrats on my computer.

[Eyebiter]

One thing I miss are the old MGM double sided DVD's with the widescreen and versions on the same disk. Now days you have to buy a movie twice to get both versions.

[Terran]

Aguirre the Wrath of God has a kick ass menu....Theres still a ring around my disk from when I played that animated menu for days and nights on end....I started to go crazy....

[Danny]

One thing I miss are the old MGM double sided DVD's with the widescreen and versions on the same disk. Now days you have to buy a movie twice to get both versions. i remember when i was...11 maybe and we got our first dvd rentals and my brother got a freinds dvd (the signs are there, im just waiting for him to introduce "ted" to our mom) that was the only double sided dvd i have seen before or since and i was, at the time, like "do-do i put it in the wrong way or theright way?" no idea what i meant though, but i was raised by a waoman who believed copied vhs tapes would make a player explode when played in them

[_liam_]

Aguirre the Wrath of God has a kick ass menu....Theres still a ring around my disk from when I played that animated menu for days and nights on end....I started to go crazy.... lol, i've been there... I think animated menus should play for a few cycles and then go to a static one