Murphy's Law Bites Again OTD

[prog]

The DVDs I got yesterday are physically unusual in that they are double-sided, allowing each box to contain a single disc with the content amount two "normal" DVDs. And this design invites a humdinger of a UI misfeature: the label on each side is not only printed in teeny-tiny eyestrain-o-vision, printed around the middle ring (where else can it go?), but the "Side A/Side B" name refers to the content on the opposite side of the disc. So "Side A" means "Insert this side up to get at Side A of the disc", but anyone who has ever seen an LP before would first think it means "Insert the disc so that this side interfaces with the DVD's laser (in other words, this side down), in order to get at Side A."

I was honestly confused by this for a while! Can I safely assume that double-sided DVDs have existed for a while but I don't see more of them because of how confusing this label business becomes?

Comments

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

In the early days of DVDs (five or six years ago) it was common to have two sided DVDs. It was easier to manufacture a two sided disk than a dual layer disk. Most DVDs these days are two layers, meaning that halfway through the movie the laser refocuses to read off the second layer. You will sometimes notice a pause on some DVD players at the layer transition.

But two layer DVDs are harder to manufacture, so early DVDs were "flippers." You would have to actually flip the DVD over halfway through the movie (like a record). I'm not sure, but I expect the label convention was established then. I believe LaserDiscs follow the same convention, with the label on the opposite side from the content.

These days two sided disks with one dual layer and one single layer are relatively mainstream. Two sided disks with dual layers on both sides have only appeared recently because they are significantly more difficult to manufacture.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about dual-layered discs! Interesting.