Originally posted by: Z6PO
Doing a transfer of Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind is a great idea! RowMan, will you use seamless branching to offer both the theatrical cut and the special edition of CE3K on your DVD?

True seamless branching is not possible on home-made DVDs at this point, unfortunately. There is a program on the Mac that costs $500 that can do it (but you have to have a mac too). The only other way to make seamless branching DVDs is on hundred-thousand dollar workstations from Sony etc.

You can make DVDs that point to the same data in Scenarist or DVDLab Pro, but there will be a slight pause when a branch is encountered on a standalone player (like a layer break). Commercial seamless branching DVDs are made by mixing small amounts of the MPEG files within each other so that the laser can skip across these small gaps. It is an extremely complex thing to do properly.

I know a bit about it because I am currently doing a W1ngs of H0nneam1se (anime) dvd, with the video from the japanese disc which uses seamless branching. (the numbers are not in the actual name I just put them there so no one finds it via search and gets me in trouble). The official DVD has shocking video quality so I'm making a disc that combines the us extras with the japanese video. But I can't recreate the seamless branching. Anyone interested in a copy can email/PM...

You can make one version play back normally and the other version play back with pauses though. Perhaps you should do this for Close Encounters, having the director's cut (laserdisc version) play back with pauses. Anyway I'd be in line for any copy of the theatrical version put to DVD!

Others that I'm after are Song of the South, Blade Runner theatrical and THX1138. I know these are out there but can't find anyone to sell me them. Anyone here got copies?