Layer changes/Disc capacity?

[fattyboombatty]

how long do films run before a layer change?

how many minutes can a DVD hold?

i just found out that some films have to be turned over. WTF????
does that mean i can play DVD's under my grill,aswell? how do i avoid these "things". does it say on the cover that there is an enforced interval and that you must have an ice cream, whilst you manualy(shudder!) get up and flip the disc???? :nuts:

thanks:)

[Ridcully]

There is no fixed time for each layer as it depends on several things such as how many languages are encoded and the quality of the transfer (more data per second). Most disc that have a layer change state on the box 'layer change may trigger a slight pause'. Depending on your player this is either very very small or a couple of seconds.

In the early days of DVD layer changes were not used and each side of the disc was used instead. TYhis meant that you had to turn them over mid film. They are called flippers and hated by everyone. No new flippers exist but many back catalogue films do. They have 'Turn over disc at the end of side a' on the back.

Amadeus is a flipper, as is most of the WB back catalogue although a good propotion of this has no been re-issued with dual layered discs and more extras such as The Rock, Armagedon.

[GarethH]

A 4.3GB (Single Layer) DVD can hold about 135 Minutes of Standard Bit-Rate Video with a single Dolby Digital track. The amount is decreased with the more audio tracks that are on the disc as well as extras.

Most DVD's are now on Dual-Layer discs which is about 8Gb (not sure exact). Most old movie DVD's never use to have a layer change if it was not needed, but most companies now put a layer change on a less longer movies as they want to make it look like a standard expectation for every DVD you watch.

The Layer change is usually half way in the movie, but some DVD companies will actually take the time to find the best suitable place in the movie. i.e. where a scene goes black or there is not much movement going on.

Depending on your machine, the layer change can vary. It also depends on whether your watching a PAL or NTSC movie and if your listening to Dolby Digital or DTS. The longest layer change will be on a PAL disc with DTS Sound as it contains the most bit-rate and takes longer before the video and sound is buffered again.

My Pioneer is roughly as follows:

NTSC DD Track - 0.5 Seconds
NTSC DTS Track - 1 Second
PAL DD Track - 1.5 Seconds
PAL DTS Track - 2 Seconds

Pioneer's tend to be quite slow, Toshiba's a little faster. Some Older players will skip video and sound rather than have a pause.

Some expensive players such as the Denon don't have any pause cause they buffer video/sound seconds ahead.

PC-DVD drives buffer the video for a couple of seconds so there is no noticable change either.

Hope I have been of help

[GarethH]

Sometimes I feel that typing all that crap was a waste of time.

[kcxdev]

More DVD specs:

DVD-5 - 4.7gb (Single-Layer/ Single-Sided disc)
DVD-9 - 8.5gb (Double-Layer/ Single-Sided disc)
DVD-10 - 9.4gb (Single-Layer/ Double-Sided disc)
DVD-18 - 17gb (Double-Layer/ Double Sided disc)

[fattyboombatty]

thanks guys!!!:clap: