seamless branching?

[Extrocomp]

I read that on the TOS Blu-Rays it's going to be possible to watch the episodes with the old effects or with the new effects because of 'seamless branching'.

What is seamless branching? Does it mean that I can press a button to switch from old effects to new effects and back while watching the episode. Or do you choose from a menu, whether to watch the old version or the new version?

 

[Piper]

What is seamless branching? Does it mean that I can press a button to switch from old effects to new effects and back while watching the episode.

This is exactly what it means, so you can compare the new and old SFX "on the fly" as it were, while the episode is playing. Great feature

 

[Hermiod]

I read that on the TOS Blu-Rays it's going to be possible to watch the episodes with the old effects or with the new effects because of 'seamless branching'.

What is seamless branching? Does it mean that I can press a button to switch from old effects to new effects and back while watching the episode. Or do you choose from a menu, whether to watch the old version or the new version?

Basically, it's a technique that allows two different versions of the same film or episode to be included on the same disc without wasting space.

If, for example, you had a Director's Cut of a film, it would make it possible to include the Theatrical Cut as well. Only the parts of the film that are different are stored separately.

A good example - say you bought a copy of Star Wars. In one version, Han shoots first, in the other Greedo shoots first. Without seamless branching, it would be necessary to store two complete copies of the entire film that only differ by that one scene - which would probably mean needing two discs. With seamless branching, the DVD player can just play the common scenes right up to that point in the film, then it plays the correct version of the scene, then it goes back to playing the common scenes.

This also works with deleted scenes, the player can insert them back in to the film or not, depending on your choice.