For those of you who have bought TV season sets that now come in those 2-disc per flap didgipaks, you know they're somewhat of a mixed blessing. For one, they tend to be thinner sets than the old single-disc digipaks, but as a consequence each disc only has a half of hub to hold it. Well, for some reason, these half hubs seem to be more prone to get broken tabs.

I just got my Xena Season 6 set (a day earlier than street date), and I got not one, but two broken hubs. On just had one tab broken, another had two tabs broken across from one another, therefore leaving just the "top" tab intact and to hold the disc. Well, obviously, it doesn't.

So what am I to do? I hate to send the set back to DDD, just for some broken tabs. I'm usually not the anal customer, but I do return bad discs. Until I test the affected discs, I won't know if they've received damage. The thing is that I haven't even watched the Season 5 set yet. So I hate to test these discs until I reach that point in the story.

i've never seen them as a blessing at all......
I despise these cases...it's just too annoying to have to remove one disc in order to be able to access another....

just a horrible horrible design in my opinion.

Well, you're right. That's another issue that I forgot about. It's ashame that the studios just couldn't use packaging similar to the DS9 or VOY sets. 7-disc book-like trays.

I usually don't worry much about the kind of packaging companies use, but I have to agree those are pretty terrible. I would just prefer everyone started using the thin cases like Fox uses on most of their TV box sets. It looks really nice and it is easy to access and secure for the discs.

... or packaging like The Commish. 3 double-disc slimcases. Easy access to discs, not prone to damage, easily replacable if it breaks, and a 6-disc set takes up about as much space as 1.5 keepcases.

I think we're going to be seeing more of this in the future. Shelf space (both in people's homes and more importantly at retail) is becoming an issue for content providers. These big chunky TV sets are going to become a thing of the past as studios start cranking out 50+ TV releases per year. There's only so much room in the local Wal-Mart.

One of my favorite new packaging schemes is what is seen with Wonderfalls and Tru Calling.

They're thin keepcases that hold two DVDs.

It's a great, space-saving solution that takes up less space (6 DVDs can be held in a package that's less than an inch thick), the discs are secure on the hubs, yet easy to remove, and they're as durable as any other keepcase.

Bleh. Beat me to it.

I would LOVE to see more of these cases used for multi-disc sets. Much better than the other options like those horrid cardboard roll-out cases (like Fox uses for Buffy and 24) or those flimsy-looking "books" like Alias S3 got.

Yes, space is becoming an issue -- and not even "retail" space, but the physical space our collections take up. I'm at the point where it's irritating to see space-hogging cases like Penn and Teller's Bullshit Season Two (three full-size keepcases for 3 discs, when the first season got three slim cases) or the thick keepcases that Paramount uses for their Star Trek movie SEs.

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