DVD Boxsets...why is there no consitency?

[severdhed]

a week or two ago, Season 5 of Smallville came out on DVD, and like the first four seasons, i went and bought it.  Only to bring it home to discover that the box isnt the same size as the first four.  It isnt a big difference, but it is thinner and slightly shorter..it just doesnt match the rest of them. 

well, today Season 9 of Stargate SG1 came out on DVD..so I go to walmart to pick it up and what do i find?  it is drastically different than the first eight seasons.  the first eight seasons came in 5 standard dvd cases, inside a cardboard sleave.  this one is in 3 slim cases inside a cardbaord sleeve, it is like 1/3 the size.  Why after 8 seasons do they feel the need to completely redesign the packaging.  It really pisses me off.  Now my collection looks retarded.  I love the show and want to watch it, but it looks so stupid sitting next to the rest of them.

/rant

[ChadTower]

DVDs will be gauche soon anyway.  People will have to replace their collections with whatever comes next.

[Daniel270]

Odds are, it didn't cost them as much to make.   Did you pay the same for those final seasons as you paid for the earlier ones?  If so, it's profit for them.....

[severdhed]

yeah, i understand that there is money to be saved by changing the packaging..it is just very annoying.  I spent alot of money to have the full collection, and thanks to someone being stupid, my collection now looks like crap.


as for replacing them with a new format, there is no need.  These shows werent filmed in hi-def, there is no reason to get bluray or hddvd versions.  I have not seen HD DVD in action yet, but i have seen bluray, and I am not impressed.  They have one at best buy that runs Stargate the movie on a constant loop, and it looks like crap.  I dont know how they expect to sell a $1000 bluray player when it looks like vhs quality.

but thats another story all together.

[pointdablame]

DVDs will be gauche soon anyway.  People will have to replace their collections with whatever comes next.

oh brother... Debbie Downer stirkes again.

You can't seriously believe that, right Chad?




severdhed - I really hate that too.  I was not happy when they changed the Simpsons boxsets, and I can't see that that move saved them money.  The "head" boxes for the Simpsons seem much more complex and expensive compared to the regular old boxes.  Perhaps they aren't, but they sure seem like they would be.

I'm like you though, as mundane as it may seem, I like all my boxsets to look the same.

[ChadTower]

I know people who are already complaining about "having to rebuy my whole collection in BluRay".   The same people who went out and rebought their whole collection in DVD because laserdiscs went out of style.

[pointdablame]

I know people who are already complaining about "having to rebuy my whole collection in BluRay".   The same people who went out and rebought their whole collection in DVD because laserdiscs went out of style.

Those people are either

1) Early adopters to new technology
2) Not at all informed about the current DVD market.

DVDs have a large sustainable life in them yet.  Yes, they will be replaced, as all technology is, but that is a ways off still.

[Lutus]

How many years was it between laserdisc and DVD?

[ChadTower]

Yes, agreed.  They are also dumbasses.

My sarcasm was drippy but apparently not obvious enough.

[shardian]

I'm quite happy with my VHS Star Wars movies.

As a side note, the only complete, multiple season shows I own are Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Roswell. They are the exact same format throughout.

[Harry Potter]

Anyone not wanting their DVDs in anticipation of BluRay can send them to me. 

I'll suffer the lower resolution.

[Lutus]

I remember watching the original Star Wars on Laserdisc at some guys house who had a projector in his living room.  That was unheard of back in the day.  (yes, they were rich)

[shardian]

well...to tell the truth I wish I would've bought widescreen at least. 

[DaveMMR]

How many years was it between laserdisc and DVD?

Laserdisc players came out around 1978.  They didn't really die until the late 90's/early 00's when DVD really took off.  From Wikipedia:

The last two titles released in North America were Paramount's Sleepy Hollow and Bringing Out the Dead in 2000. A dozen or so more titles continued to be released in Japan until the end of 2001. The last Japanese-released LD-format movie title was Tokyo Raiders.

Don't forget there was some competition with VCDs during Laserdiscs lifespan.  Though, admittably, it's an unfair comparison with DVDs since Laserdisc had a more dedicated and smaller following.

Regular ole DVDs will probably be around for a long time.

On topic with pointdablame's remark: Yes, I hated having to mail away for the non-head box for Season Six of the Simpsons.  The head boxes are cool, I suppose, but they do not mesh well with the rest of the boxes on my DVD rack.

[JoeJoe97]

These shows werent filmed in hi-def, there is no reason to get bluray or hddvd versions.

TV is filmed at a much higher quality then it is broadcast.  I certainly agree with your point that it is not needed to get HD or bluray, but if they want to release higher quality they likely can.

Also, the real reason to avoid Bluray/HD-DVD has not been stated in this thread.  A little thing called HDMI.  This is written into the specs for both, but not implemented on either the discs or the players yet.  If it does get enabled, you would need a TV with HDMI to play the videos with it enabled. 

The point for the media companies to start using this tag is that your TV would become a secure communications channel.  There would be no way to pickup the signal in between your TV and the player.  This closes the "analog hole" which can currently be used for recording. 

The great point for you is you need a new TV because they are worried your going to steal the thing you just bought.  Now there is always the chance either the media companies will never enable this option, but really with thier track record who puts faith in that.

[crashwg]

While we're on the subject and speeking of the Simpsons and their stupid head shaped DVD boxes...

I noticed that 7 and 8 came in both the normal box and the head shaped box which I'm assuming is because of complaints they recieved about 6.  Is there any chance in hell that they will release 6 in a normal box?  I still haven't bough 6 because I'm hoping that it will happen but I'm not sure how long I should hold my breath.

Oh, I went on amazon.co.uk and looked up season 6 and it looks like it's a regular box but I'm not sure.  Anyone from the UK care to comment?  If so they probably have the same amount of disks and such...  Maybe it would be feasable to buy both and switch the disks.

[pointdablame]

http://www.simpsonsbox.com/


You can get a replacement box for the 6th season from there.   That's how I got mine.

[crashwg]

http://www.simpsonsbox.com/


You can get a replacement box for the 6th season from there.   That's how I got mine.

I am aware of that but it is not the same as the "normal" box.  You just take the sleve from the head and slide it, from the top, into a box.  What I want is the same style case as all the rest of the seasons have with a book-like thing with multiple flaps and such.

[shmokes]

I'm not really concerned about the image constraint token, to be honest.  Who the hell wants to intercept the analog outputs to record a movie?  Macrovision was basically the same thing, but for DVDs and, seriously, who gave a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.  The digital copy protection will be cracked in a year or two (certainly by the time blank media is affordable), and like DVDs, the cracked copy protection can't be fixed without rendering all the existing players useless.  We'll copy BluRay/HD-DVD the same way we copy DVDs -- digitally, on our computers.  ICT won't even matter.

Frankly, I kind of doubt the ICT will ever be enabled.  How long is it going to be before anything even approaching a majority of consumers have HD sets with HDMI inputs?  There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of 1080i sets in homes today that only have component inputs for HD.  By the time HDMI is ubiquitous enough to make switching on the ITC anything but a financial disaster we're going to be looking at 50 Mb/sec household internet connections and discs are going to be on their way to extinction.

[richms]

They can fix it by revoking keys, and since they are long keys (not like dvd's ones) they wont be trivial to crack.

There are already hdmi defeating boxes out there, in the form of hdmi monitor splitters. Once again, those keys can be revoked by the players at some stage.

But I really dont think it will matter. People only have to bust the key out of one really popular player and then its all wide open. Noone would risk upsetting the millions of users of those players by blacklisting the key, and when you look at the efforts that people go to just to crack pay tv with reading eeproms with electron microscopes etc, you can be sure that it will happen.