Does Size Matter?

[Noah Winter]

Recently I was looking for the best copy of the movie “Bugsy” and discovered it has never been released on Blu-ray and is only available in the K store as SD. I understand that 4K movies in the store come from Mezzanine(sp?) files and therefore they are often larger files than found on 4K discs. This presumably leads to better video quality. My understanding of HD and SD movies in the K store is that these are simply bit for bit copies of Blu-ray and DVD discs.

On a whim I checked on Vudu and found an HDX version for Bugsy. I read that the average file size for HDX films are around 8 GBs. The DVD size for Bugsy is also around 8 GBs. The size of the movie in the K Store is 11.6 GBs. Almost 50% larger than the DVD and the HDX. Both the K SD file and the HDX offer the same 5.1 audio.

I then checked another title, “Cat Ballou”. The DVD is 4.2 GBs while the K Store is 8.7 GBs.

So, I have two questions:

Do the SD and HD titles in the K store provide superior video performance due to their larger files size than their DVD and HD equivalents? I have not read of this claim before. This assumes a 12’ screen in an environment-controlled room if that helps.

Secondly, would the picture quality be better, assuming a good high-speed internet connection, for the HDX version from Vudu/MA or the SD version from the K-store?

All thoughts are welcome.

Thank you.

 

[J.Green]

I'm going to studiously ignore your question about picture quality comparisons between our store versions and Vudu's HDX versions. It's not my area of expertise and I am, clearly, biased.

What I *can* tell you is that our store version of Bugsy is larger because there's actually two media objects -- the movie ("Disc 1" if you like) and the extras (or "Disc 2"). The SD version from our store would be bit-for-bit equivalent to a DVD. Given the file size, it's likely that the Vudu version doesn't include all of the materials from the supplement disc (or they have compressed them).

As for "Cat Ballou", the situation is similar. There are two "discs" included, in this case a Widescreen and Cropped version of the movie.

 

[Noah Winter]

Thanks so much John, that makes sense about the sizes. The extra's also provide an argument for upgrading to the K-store version.

 

[Vodder]

Love that movie! We did it as the school play, given my amazing acting skills I was tasked with playing a number of characters, namely dead goons and a boxer thankfully this was well before the time of most camcorders let alone anything else

 

[Vodder]

We did film the Friday indoor 5-a-side soccer league I ran but one of the lads’ mums borrowed the video tape; never to be seen again! Not sure if that is a a good or a bad thing! would have been circa 1994-5