When faced with the two-disc set consisting of a 4K Ultra HD disc plus a Blu-ray disc, but both discs contain different cuts (i.e. the 4K disc has the theatrical version while the Blu-ray has an extended cut), then which running time prevails? Should that be the running time of the "main" media type, that would be the 4K Ultra HD disc, or should it be that of the extended cut only found on the accompanying Blu-ray disc? The rules aren't really clear on this. There's the bit that says:

Quote:
For branching titles, or those with multiple versions (e.g. Theatrical and Director's Cut) on the same disc, use the longest running time.

But that explicitly says "on the same disc" - that's not the case here.

Then there's this:

Quote:
Sets containing the same film on multiple media types (such as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack) are to be entered as a normal profile for the main media type (Blu-ray in this example), with all included media types checked. A combo which includes HD media (HD-DVD, Blu-ray) as well as DVD should use the details from the HD media in the main profile. However, you may add an additional profile by Disc ID for the DVD content and add this profile to the Box Set contents for the Blu-ray profile.

4K isn't mentioned in this, but I gather that the idea is to favor the "highest quality" disc. So should I use the (shorter) running time that's on the 4K disc, then?

Of course, I understand that I can add a separate, Disc ID-based child profile for the Blu-ray disc, in which I can profile all of that disc's properties. There's obviously no question what to list there, but that child profile is optional - it's still important to know what we want to want to put into the main profile. Is it "always use the longest running time", or is it "use the running time of the 'best' media type"?

Each disc should speak for itself, not that of the package...that's why we have children.

I think the intention is to take the longest cut on the highest resolution but more weight to the resolution.

So the road would be:

1) Find highest resolution, in this case 4K

2) Find longest cut in that resolution, in this case theatrical


The reason for this approach is that usually you buy something for the higher resolution and anything with lower res is just "by-catch"

I agree with Karsten and Danae Cassandra.

Ditto

I agree. If it's a 4K release, then take the Running Time from the 4K version.

Agree with Danae Cassandra.

Perhaps good to remember that, at the time of introduction of 4K, the industry decided to include the BluRay with every 4K (UHD) release under the assumption you'd still be in the process of buying a 4K-player. And if 4K wouldn't catch on, you'd always have the BluRay as fall-back.

As a side effect it allowed the industry to leave the extras only on the BluRay and use the "maximum space" for the 4K video file. Between brackets of course due to the number of audio tracks on the 4K disk.

So 4K is the main release and that length should be in the profile.