MovieChat Forums > The Pelican Brief (1993) Discussion > The DVD sucks!

The DVD sucks!

posted 18 years ago by bluejay8
28 replies | jump to latest

Wow,

I had this on VHS and sold it with a collection of other VHS relics on Ebay because I had recently bought the DVD.. what a mistake! I own over 500 movies and this is the ONLY ONE that you have to flip over the DVD to see the other half of the movie, what a rip! I can understand this might have come out during the early days of the DVD technology, but 'cmon! It's really not that big of a deal to change it over, but with DVD tech it's totally unnessescary.

If I had to do it over I'd keep the VHS version. That's a first! And no special features of anykind.

I hope they release a new version of the DVD sometime.

[–] pretenderbabie 18 years ago

I was an idiot. I stopped at the end of the first side thinking that the movie was over and I was complaining to my dad about how the movie sucked! He told me to flip it over.

It was a good movie.

[–] ilikefunnyrabbits 16 years ago

yes, you are an idiot.

[–] illogyst 16 years ago

but you can manage to take a piss alone, do you?
mavbe your dad can hold your hand ???

just kidding

"best/worst-movie-ever"-idiots don't deserve to watch movies at all ...

[–] katentek 17 years ago

Isn't it ironic that when CD's first came out people complained because the musical "structure" of albums took into account the need to turn the vinyl LP version over. Lucky you didn't live in those days ... turning over the LP may have been too much for you.

"Everything is safe till it goes wrong" - Joe Simpson, "Touching the Void" - book only.

[–] fanaticita 17 years ago

It was a little confusing for me too, as I started watching the flip side first, thinking -oh this is an interesting way to start a movie. . . . after 5 minutes I realized something was wrong! Duh!

[–] steffers27 17 years ago

My husband and I thought there was something wrong with the DVD till we went to Menu and it says "side A". I have no other DVD that you have to flip and we own over 100 movies!!! It's annoying.

[–] gerdd 17 years ago

See, this is one of those cases where I would say it is justified to break the copy protection and make a copy for your own use, where it all fits on one side.

Just for the curiosity value of it: I do have a few double-sided DVDs. Some have the 4:3 version on one side and the 16:9 version on the other, one - a miniseries about Shaka Zulu, the famous leader of the Zulu nation - contains two double sided single layer DVDs instead of four DVDs or two double layered ones.

When the technology was first announced it was said that a "side" would hold about 4.7 Gigabytes or 120 minutes at full resolution. For longer programs there would be double sided and/or double layered disks. Double layered refers to the fact that looking through the data surface and focusing on a second surface underneath it you can get at another 4.7 Gigabytes worth of data, thus showing a contiguous capacity of about 9GB. So, if you can see more than 4.7 GB of data in the VIDEO_TS folder of a DVD then you have a double layered one. Obviously, a second side can hold the same amount all over again, so that theoretically the original DVD design caters for about 18GB of data - not that far from the Hi Density or Blue Ray technologies now being introduced. I must say, though, that I am not aware of any disks that are both double sided and double layered.

I wonder if the original specs called for double head assemblies in the drives, so that you wouldn't have to turn the disks around. Towards the end of their life cycle there were a few designs of vinyl record players that had dual pickup systems and allowed you to play both sides of a disk without getting up to turn the record around. And when CDs were announced an engineer answered a journalist's question about double sided CDs with the quip that they expected the second side to be reserved for the label information rather than another 70-odd minutes of music.

So, what I don't quite understand is why your copy of "The Pelican Brief" is double sided rather than double layered. I suspect if you buy recent copies today they will be double layered. You usually find a note about that on the sleeve as well as a warning that there may be a short delay in the program when the player switches between layers.

One other thing. The technology supports a number of more compressed (or "lower resolution") formats, but the providers of program material do not as a rule make use of this. Your home DVD recorder may get up to eight hours worth of video on to the 4.7 GB blank disks that are labeled "120 minutes". And if you don't compress more than about three or four hours of programming onto one DVD you may not even notice much of a picture quality degradation.

[–] marjorie-hillman 17 years ago

"So, what I don't quite understand is why your copy of "The Pelican Brief" is double sided rather than double layered. I suspect if you buy recent copies today they will be double layered."

No, Gerdd, I bought my copy of the Pelican Brief brand new via Amazon within the last six months and it is still a double-sided, single-layered version!

Does anyone know whether a single-sided, double-layered version has been produced yet at all? And, if so, where can I obtain it? Thanks.

I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have done that. No, you were brilliant. (Notting Hill)

[–] Catherine_Grace_Zeh 15 years ago

It's coming to blu-ray very, very soon! Yay!

[–] bluejay8 17 years ago

My copy of this was ruined while I moved over the Holiday season and I won't be purchasing another one. Thanks for all the info. It's a movie I liked to catch two or three times a year, at least. I will probably hunt garage sales or Ebay for another VHS version. With today's tech there's absolutely no reason to have a double-sided DVD, if nothing else if being watched during a date or a lazy day on the couch it's just plain inconvenient to have to go change it and interrupts the movie watching experience, especially since the DVD had no special features taking up any kind of room.

[–] bigbuff_guy 16 years ago

Yeah, I rented this about a week ago, and accidentally watched the entire second half of the movie first. The reason is it looks like a lot of DVDs that have a fullscreen version on one side and a widescreen version on the other. I saw "Widescreen" on Side B and put it in. I did think it was weird that it didn't have any opening credits, and I was confused because they kept referencing things that had happened that I never saw. I thought that maybe the DVD had been damaged, so I tried to skip back before the first scene and even looked at the scene selection screen, but there was nothing earlier. And then the movie ended after just over an hour. That's when I finally figured out that the fist half of the movie was on the other side. Unbelievable.

[–] jakemania2006 16 years ago

Can't you just rip the DVD to the computer and then make your own copy of it so it will all be one side?

[–] kickstand_cutigers 16 years ago

I bought the dvd today along with A time To Kill from walmart, "2 for $10" and BOTH of them are this double-sided BULL$Hi TTT....but like some of you have said just rip it to your comp and burn a DVD.

[–] iLoveshopping73 16 years ago

i am so glad you said that, i thought that was the end of the movie! haha, i was about to send it back to netflix because i thought it was over.

[–] Daedalus02025 15 years ago

They still haven't taken care of the problem!

[–] BigRich 15 years ago

I just finished watching this movie for the first time, but it was on Blu Ray. :)

I know what you're talking about though. I have an old Good Fellas DVD that you have to flip over, but regarding that movie, the best parts are on side A. Side B, the movie jumps the shark.

_
Every person that served can be called a veteran, but not every veteran can be called a Marine.

[–] jlbwells 15 years ago

its kind of sad that people here are complaining about such a triviality; oh my God i have to get up walk five feet, flip the dvd and walk back five to the couch. I assume none of you play video games, otherwise id say some of you would lose your hair when the system asked you to insert disc 2.

Btw lord of the rings the extended edition and a few others are also on multiple discs, which i would say given the choice between double sided and two disc is worse, because if you lose one dvd you are screwed.

[–] leengee 14 years ago

Get a multi disc player, buy two copies of the disc. Presto, you can leave your lazy butt on the couch.

"Plan? There ain't no plan!" - Pigkiller

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] Harry-Caul 13 years ago

Well I did laugh when, half way through, we see a computer animated hand turning over a disc. Well I suspect only some of the very early copies have the film over both sides of the disc; so they will be worth something in about 200 years time..... hang on to your copy and give it to your grand children:-)

[–] junrau 13 years ago

Apparently all copies of this movie on DVD are two-sided. Only the blu-ray (released in 2009) is all on one side.

[–] jttoft 13 years ago

Not only is it two-sided, but the video quality is quite poor as well. The film, however, is great!