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Main Page

  • Ghostbusters

Readers' Reviews

DVD Coverage

  • DVD Zone 1

Ecto-Web Review

TV Advertisment Videos

DVD-Rom coverage

DVD Analysis

Tech Help

Press Release

 

Storyboards

Comparison to GB2

Pan&Scan 4


Other Stuff

Rerelease News

Website News

Comparison between GB1& GB2




Main Sections
 
 
Technical Analysis

I'm not a DVD wizard anyway I'm in the techie stuff a little so I decided to buildup an analysis of the disc.If you are looking for my "consumer" review is here.

What is all about? Anyone I guess, know the features of the DVDs , commentary, fetaurettes etc. ( See Official Press Release) but how the disc is made? How does it works? I got so software tools and docs and , with a little of patience I tried to unveils what's "under the hood"

Every DVD is divided in Titles and Chapters, actually, chapters are sub parts of the titles, and all of them are used to navigate the contents of the disc. Each Title & Cheaper as a number to disguish them.

Each movie, video clips and section of the disc is a different Title which can be divided in Chapter to allow you to jump to a specific part of the film. For instance , the GB movie on DVD is title 11 , divided in 30 chapters, which represent the scene you can select from the "Scene selection" menu. Other clips like the Featurette is Title 3 and has no chapter subdivision , you can jump directly to a particular moment.

The Ghostbusters DVD is fairly complex , containing lot of stuff, divided in 28 titles, and hundreds of chapters..

The menu is a particular feature. infact , it does not appear as a Title but act like one, with some neat differences. Therefore, you can call the Menu everytime you want and the playback will pause coming back where it was when you dismiss the menu. If you notice you DVD Player display you'll see that once in the menu , the Title and Chapter value will not change, as the menu would be an extra track , independent from the rest. Anyway the way the navigation is achieved inside a menu is the same as in a title.

(NOTE: The DVD Video definition can be basically shorted to a "series of MPEG2 files with a navigational structures" that's why if you browse the DVD with a computer you will find .VOB files (Video OBject) and not raw .MPG files)

I took my time , and some headaches too...) and build up the following table , showing you the title subdivision, their length, chapters, contents, and Bitrate.

Bitrate is a favorite of mine and need a little explanation. Bitrate is the amount of date the DVD send to your computer to show the picture. The Bitrate is defined at the encoding process when the movie is been converted to a file. MPEG2 uses a Variable Bitrate method (VBR), which allow to modify the Bitrate s it is needed. For example, a completely black picture need very few information to coded while an explosion shot , due its complexity (lot of light, shadows etc.) requires a lot more. VBR would limit the Bitrate on the black picture and increase it on the explosion shot., removing redundant and excessive data. This lead to smaller file size and smoothest playback.. How VBR apply is defined by the editor.

Bitrate encoding is an hard job, and often lazy studios ( see; Walt Disney , Buena Vista) simply encode their movies at too high Bitrate, this certainly guarantee good quality , but can result in troubles like DVD Drive overload , playbacks slowdown, the Decoding unit having to deal with lager data that it can handle etc. Encoding at too low Bitrate , decrease quality so is not smart move neither, The good , as often is , is in the middle.

Columbia pictures , made a very good job with Bitrate , the average value on DVD is always in the optimal value, having, in the meantime, a great video and audio output. Currently this DVD has been made in the state-of-the-art DVD production studios of Columbia Pictures in LA, and with the support of Sony (owner of Columbia Pictures and one of the "father" of the DVD standard) you couldn't except anything different.

I'm not a DVD expert as I said , but it's nice to see that CP cared about this DVD and that it has been made aiming for and high quality product. This really positive

Due the VBR stuff I told ya , I put in the table, the average Bitrate of every title and the lowest and highest peak with a time referencing value. Note that while the Average has been calculated by software , peeks has been gathered manually , so they are not perfect. I also provided graph ( Mb/s /Min) to show you the VBR dynamics

Some titles as additional details you should look at.

Click on underlined title number to see details

Title
Contents
LengthChsBitrate Analisys (Mb/s)
    Min@AverageMax@
Graph
01
SFX Gallery
2:27288--2.90--
  
02
Production Gallery
1:59234--2.10--
  
03
1984 Featurette
9:2522.604:004.569.608:30
04
1999 Featurette
10:5221.808:454 458.206:00
05
SFX Featurette
15:2020.5015:154.317.304:45
06
GB1 Trailer
2:1122:600:304.659:501:45
07
GB2 Trailer
2:2722.902:274:268.800:40
08
Groundhog Day Trailer
2:4522.11:354.568.701:02
09
Stripes Trailer
2:1620.600:004.478.900:20
10
CTHV Intro
0:1230.900:124.388.200:04
11
Movie
104:56303 8095:005.857 9074:45
12
Steak Deleted Scene
0:5723.500:574.938.900:28
13
Dana Deleted Scene
0:4023.000:305.007.150:15
14
Honey Mooners Deleted Scene
1:1123.400:104.396.050:43
15
Winston Deleted Scene
0:4823.100:475.008.800:41
16
Bums Deleted Scene
0:4223.350:424.805.500:41
17
Busy Deleted Scene
1:2323.101: 205.407.000:53
18
Promotion Deleted Scene
0:3221.100:324.437.760:29
19
EPA Deleted Scene
0:1623.100:155.128.000:03
20
Hat Deleted Scene
0:2623.700:265.708.200:07
21
No Louis Deleted Scene
0:3423.800:214.908.010:30
22
Spook Central Exploding SFX
2:302----- 
23
She's a Dog SFX
1:402----- 
24
Streams Crossing SFX
1:032----- 
25
Slimer Split Compare
1:5323.001:204.838.500:40
26
Dana Spilt Compare
1:4923.601:124.728.001:45
27
Gozer Split Compare
1:4423.700:054.768.301:40
28
Storyboards
3:04364--2.60--
  


Notes on Title 01

Actually each of the 288 Chapters in Title 01 is a picture of the gallery, except one which is the gallery menu

Bitrate graph is not available as is constant for each picture.

I dunno why but everytime a sub-gallery is started the Chapter counter starts from 01 instead of starting from the actual Ch. Number ( this could be related to my player)

The Pics are divided as follow:

  • 24 Pictures in the "Ghoulish Librarian" Section
  • 19 Pictures in the "Lovely Floating Ghost" Section
  • 4 Pictures in the "Production Team" section
  • 60 pictures in the "Slimer" section
  • 43 pictures in the "Spook Central" Section
  • 65 pictures in the "Stay Puft Man" section
  • 72 pictures in the "Terror Dogs" Section

[Back]

 


Notes on Title 02

Actually each of the 234 Chapters in Title 02 is a picture of the gallery, except one which is the gallery menu

Bitrate graph is not available as it is constant for each picture.

I dunno why but everytime a sub-gallery is started the Chapter counter starts from 01 instead of starting from the actual Ch. Number ( this could be related to my player)

The Pics are divided as follow:

  • 11 pictures in the "Colorful Early NYC Concept" section
  • 3 pictures in the "Colorful Ecto-Mobile Interior" section
  • 3 pictures in the "Early Stay-Puft Man Concepts" section
  • 19 pictures in the "Light Stream Chalk Drawings" section
  • 158 pictures in the "Pencil & Chalk Creature Concepts" section
  • 5 pictures in the "Pencil Librarian Ghoul Concepts" section
  • 4 pictures in the "Pencil Terror Dog Concepts" section
  • 10 pictures in the "SFX Conceptual Paintings" section
  • 17 pictures in the "Early Logo Concepts" section

[Back]

 


Notes on Title 10

I initially though that the Title 10 was the DVD menu, but it's not. It's only 0:12 long , while the Menu's scene play's foe aproximatively 0:30 before looping. Also the menu should be full of chapter and each click would lead to a different chapter such as the Spook Central animation. I guess that the menu is not considered a title then....I noticed that the movie is actually paused when you come back to the menu.I'm investigating.

[Back]


Notes on Title 11

The movie's scene subdivision (which sucks IMO) actually follow the subdivision used in the Original Shooting script , reproduced in the DVD-Rom. Since lot of movie's playtime has been removed in post-production and final cutting , often the chapters sequences are quite long and include two or three scene instead of simply one. This has been done, probably, to synchronize the DVD-Links in the DVD-Rom with the script.

[Back]


Notes on Title 22-23-24

The given length represents the duration of the clip. Not the sum of both angles. Note that the Title duration is actually equal to the clips duration as the different angles are not sequentially encoded, but interleaved.

This also explain why the Bitrate is not influenced by the multiple angles.

My Bitrate software seems to screw up with multiple-angle title therefore no graphs are available for those titles.

[Back]


Notes on Title 28

Actually each of the 234 Chapters in Title 28 is a picture of the gallery, except one which is the gallery menu

Bitrate graph is not available as is constant for each picture.

I dunno why but everytime a sub-gallery is started the Chapter counter starts from 01 instead of starting from the actual Ch. Number ( this could be related to my player)

The Pics are divided as follow:

  • 6 Pics for "Bumbs in Park"
  • 25 for "Dogs Grab Dana"
  • 6 for " Slimer pigs out"
  • 14 for"Haunted Stacks'
  • 26 for "Boysin Libriry"
  • 26 for "Louis meets dog"
  • 14 for "Meat coat"
  • 22 for "Louis meets Muggers"
  • 24 for "Proton Charging"
  • 87 for "Atop Spook Central"
  • 13 for "Cheeky Ghost"
  • 110 for "Slimer