I don't know if anybody on here can address this, but if they can then I would definitely appreciate it. I just watched the episode of Hey, Nice Package which featured Lain and saw that the Blu-Ray version will be only two discs. This is legitimately alarming as the Japanese RESTORE box-set is three discs and according to Geneon's site all discs were dual-layer. Is Funimation taking any precautions to make sure that the video quality is the same as what was seen with the Japanese release?
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2 blu ray discs for 13 half hour episodes is no problem what-so-ever. While it does depend on the compression (probably MPEG 4 AVC) and especially the bit rate the video is encoded in, it is possible to fit up to 9 hours of HD video on a double layer blu ray disc (but that is most likely at a low bit rate.) Take for instance the just released Steins ;Gate blu ray. The first disc has 8 episodes on it and it is averaging 18-19 Mbps, and I think this release looks extremely good. My only Japanese release to compare that to is Kara no Kyoukai, and it is not really a fair comparison because even though it is older the production values are so high with it being a theatrical release. It's bitrate (movie 5) is at about 26.5 Mbps. An interesting thing to note though is that it pretty much remains at that bitrate, whereas in Steins;Gate the bitrate would drop on scenes where need for the high bitrate was unnecessary (such as shots with only text that had a background that was predominately the same color.) This is just using more compression I assume on video where the detail is unneeded thereby leaving more space on the disc. Compression algorithms have probably advanced a good deal as well since the Restore was done. Finally it has a run-time of 300 min total. If you look at the Avatar blu ray it had a run-time of 170+ minutes, tons of extras on the disc and it averaged 33 Mbps and if you have ever seen how ridiculously good that looks it should put you at ease that 150 min of of High quality Lain should fit easily per disc.
Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.- Steven Wright
What batou said. And just because the Japanese release used three discs, that doesn't mean they used or needed all 150GB of space.
I'd be more concerned about any on-disc extras that may not be present (they could be, haven't looked into it lately).
Well, the way that the Japanese version was setup consisted of three blu-ray discs for the episodes with a fourth disc for special features and two CDs consisting of the Bootleg and Cyberia Mix soundtracks if I am not mistaken. From what was seen in hey nice package, the second disc will have all special features and preview trailers. (Honestly speaking, I think the preview trailers have no place with the possible exceptions of other works from the creators of Lain. At the same time, I will profess that this viewpoint can be considered a bit extreme.) The concern that I have is that in the case of Lain, there are some portions of the series (Layer 09: Protocol in particular) where the series requires an extremely high bitrate for it to handle the "archive" scenes correctly.
It has Layers 1-7 on disc one, and layers 8-13 and the extras (the promotional video, original commercial, textless opening and closing, US trailer and trailer) on disc two. (Information taken from 1:53 of "Hey, Nice Package! - Serial Experiments Lain" Youtube video) Seriously, there is plenty of space for this. I'll bet they could run it at a low 30s Mbps bitrate (although there really is no reason to) and still have space left. The example of Avatar in my previous post should allay all your fears.
Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.- Steven Wright
From what I saw that was the DVD and the Blu-Ray had the first 9 episodes on one disc. (They actually have the pictures incorrect when they showed the blu-ray and dvd, but the Blu-Ray says blu-ray on the disc itself.)
Yeah the video showed them in the incorrect order, but what's listed is the standard for Funimation releases.
Blu-ray
DVD
NIS America does it too. The Blu-ray for Bunny Drop has 9 episodes on the first disc, and only 2 episodes along with extras on the second disc. The reason is that its cheaper. The first disc is a dual-layer, while the second disc is usually a single-layer. So instead of paying for two dual-layer discs, they only have to pay for one. But even then, everything batou has said is correct, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.