size of commercial DVD's

[pasja]

Since my DVD player stopped playing due to some fault in the commercial DVD, and since this DVD played without problems in the PC, I wanted to rip an iso and burn it to a writable DVD. I was surprised to learn that the iso of this normal (no blue ray) DVD had a size somewhat larger than 7 Gb.
Can a commercial DVD contain much more data than a writable DVD (4.7Gb) or do I miss something?

[DB83]

Dual-layer disks can have as much as 8.5 gb

You can burn your iso to such a disk or use a shrinking program to burn it to a standard single-layer disk.

[manono]

Your writable is single layer while most (not all) retail DVDs are dual layer. You can buy dual layer writables, but they're significantly more expensive than the single layer 4.37 GB ones.

[hech54]

Verbatim dual-layer at MediaMarkt:
http://www.mediamarkt.de/de/product/_verbatim-43666-scratch-resistant-dvd-r-dl-8x-1179366.html

Amazon.de ist billiger.
https://www.amazon.de/Verbatim-43666-Doppelschicht-Matt-Silber/dp/B0015Y9LQY/ref=sr_1_...tim+dvd%2Br+dl

[pasja]

I did not know that the double-layer technique is used in normal (not blu-ray) DVD. And it should be common, since no mention is made of this on the DVD cover. And I realize now that a standard, cheap (not blu-rau) DVD player is able to play these DVD's. Thanks for the reactions, I am a little bit wiser now.
I copied the iso to the HDD of my Kodi mediaplayer. Kodi is capable in handling iso, so I am enjoying the movie on my TV set now.

[DB83]

Well quite often you might see 'DVD-9' on the box. 'Dual-layer' is just a more easily understandable naming convention.

Back in the days before dual-layer became more common the studios used single-layer disks and glued them together with the 'shiny' sides facing up and down. They were commonly known as 'flippers' since you physically had to remove the disk and turn it over to play the other side. Not so long ago I bought a box set that had both 'flippers' and dual-layer diskd according to the series.

More rare were DVD-16's which were dual-layer flippers

[Keyser]

Back in the days before dual-layer became more common the studios used single-layer disks and glued them together with the 'shiny' sides facing up and down. They were commonly known as 'flippers' since you physically had to remove the disk and turn it over to play the other side.

Just for the sake of clearity, DVD-10 or "flippers" are NOT two DVD-5 glued together. They both have the same thickness (1.2mm), just with different physical characteristics.

More rare were DVD-16's which were dual-layer flippers

Those would be DVD-18.

[hech54]

I have a "flipper" version of the movie Starman. I believe one side is 4:3 and the other 16:9.

[orsetto]

More rare were DVD-16's which were dual-layer flippers

Indeed, and they were AWFUL.

Unfortunately, a significant percentage of cult TV series were released on these despicable discs that will likely never be re-released on more reliable media. So we're stuck with them: about all you can do is back them up to single-layer discs using a utility like DVDfab, or to HDD using MakeMKV.

In some cases its quite a project. Backup utilities will correct and patch many of the the stubborn read glitches on these 'quad' discs as they create the backup file, but usually half the discs in a set will have random gross errors that no hardware can read. Which means buying and re-buying sets until you finally manage to create a complete backup. Then its off to eBay with the extra sets, which will sell at a dead loss.

At least this material is increasingly migrating to streaming services: perhaps a more practical venue (if not one you can put on a shelf). I never did understand the economics that could possibly justify the ridiculous DVD-18 concept: how on earth is gluing two DVD-9s back-to-back appreciably cheaper to mass produce than two separate standard DVD-9s? Was it the slight weight reduction for shipping? Smaller packaging to fit more on store shelves? Why care about any of that: its not as if these niche titles were gonna be shipped en masse or stocked heavily at retail. Meanwhile the shoddy format was guaranteed to fail and trigger massive customer returns, wiping out profitability.

Hollywood has a recurring tendency to cut off its nose to spite its face re home video.

[johnmeyer]

Most of the "flippers" (hadn't heard that term before) I used to see were back when widescreen TVs were just becoming common. Quite a few movies were released with the pan 'n scan (4:3) version on one side and the 16:9 widescreen version on the other side. It made sense during the period when the world was transitioning to 16:9 and was actually a good thing.

[orsetto]

Most of the "flippers" (hadn't heard that term before) I used to see were back when widescreen TVs were just becoming common. Quite a few movies were released with the pan 'n scan (4:3) version on one side and the 16:9 widescreen version on the other side. It made sense during the period when the world was transitioning to 16:9 and was actually a good thing.

You're speaking of standard single-layer flippers: yes, these were common early on because gluing two single-layer sides together was (remarkably) still much cheaper than pressing the then-unperfected dual-layer discs. This type of flipper was not usually problematic to produce, and most still play fairly reliably today. Ditto ordinary, pressed dual-layer discs, which eventually became the majority format for Hollywood releases once redundant 4:3 versions for each movie could be omitted.

The hideously problematic discs are the insane DVD-18s, which are two poorly-pressed dual-layer sides glued together. The quality control on these was atrocious: the single-layer tech could be sliced thinner and glued without much risk, but pressing dual-layer sides thin enough to be glued together was difficult. The individual sides had a much higher reject rate, and gluing two of them together inevitably led to additional positioning and read errors.

Very few DVD-18s were used for movies: there was no motivating factor. They came into vogue 2005-2010, as an inexplicably stupid way to make season sets of older 23-episode 1-hour dramas fit into physically smaller cases. Universal was the worst offender here, releasing a number of late-1990s TV series in this format. Sony followed suit, and MGM particularly stubbed its toe on a few vintage sci-fi series.

Despite a mountain of defective returns, the studios refused to re-print these titles as saner, reliable DVD-9s. It took the meteoric rise of NetFlix to finally move the needle. NetFlix blew a gasket when series after series triggered massive dvd-ubscriber complaints. The studios reluctantly began reprinting series on DVD-9 exclusively for NetFlix, then realized how utterly moronic it was to keep stocking the useless defective DVD-18s at all. Some were discontinued, others migrated entirely to the NetFlix preferred multi-DVD-9 format. Then BluRay helped nail the DVD-18 coffin shut, as the collector-consumer shifted to that format (of course, the BD releases are fraught with their own technical issues, Hollywood never being happy unless it can screw the consumer out of a nice experience).

[DB83]

I guess my biggest gripe with 'flippers' is that I usually fell for the 'which is side-A' trick

Look at the disk and in small letters one often see the indicator on the centre border. Now my logic always dictated that if I saw 'Side-A' then that shiny side was Side-A so I turned the disk over only to find that the indicator served as a label and that should be side up.

Every time I play one I fall for it. DOH

[orsetto]

I guess my biggest gripe with 'flippers' is that I usually fell for the 'which is side-A' trick

Yep! This always threw me off with LaserDisc, too!

But at least you could actually READ the LaserDisc hub labels, and they'd usually spell out "x side plays with this label facing up". The microscopic hub ring labels on dual-sided dvds are difficult to decipher (and forget it if you wear glasses).

The whole flipper concept in general just works better with the larger LaserDisc format: its big enough that you instinctively handle it by the edges. Dual-sided dvds are more difficult to handle: much higher chance of getting fingerprints or scratches on the read surfaces (or dropping them while trying so hard to avoid touching the sides).

[cornemuse]

Sometimes they will say "Flip/other side is standard/widescreen" (whichever the flip/other side is)