for one week last year, Circuit City had the Black Hawk Down: 3 Disc on sale for $16.99, which I picked up.

I wished they would do that again on some other sets like that.

I might be in the minority here but:

Unless the movie in question is one that was really special to me, I find that the stuff on the "second" disk to usually be craptacular. It was worth the $$$ for me to get the extra content on the fourth disk of the Star Wars Original Trilogy, but the extra content on the second disk of "Master and Commander" wasn't worth watching more than one and paying an extra $15 or so. I don't see myself double dipping for Jaws for this same reason - Good movie but no urge to see every bit of possible extra material

I'm happy with my one disk Willy Wonka and Batman Begins because they are mostly forgettable popcorn movies IMO, and I was happy to fork over the $30 for each of my Lord of the rings 4 disk sets because they are so damn cool.

I agree with you in terms of "Disc Actual Contents". However with the the two you mentioned, the reason why it cost higher than the previous single/regular edition release was both 2 Disc/SEs carry a better package that includes an 80page++ book .

Maybe the single disc version is a DVD5 and it is a space issue. Or maybe the 2-disc version has a much higher rate of video compression.

[QUOTE=Cameron]all three of those titles are warner brothers releases. Several companies are doing this....Disney with Life Aquatic, Fox with I <3 huckabees, and kinsey...paramount with Lemony Snickett.

The reason that the two disc of The Life Aquatic is that was a Criterion.

The one-disc release was a Criterion too. But then both versions were only "part-Criterions" since they were actually released by Buena Vista.

I got sucked into paying $28 on release day at Best Buy for the 2005 War of the Worlds Limited Edition. I rarely even pay that for Criterion titles. I just got caught up in the frenzy since it was hard to find in the store.

Even now the best price on-line is $26. So this is not a good trend and I certainly will be more carefully in making these purchases. I can't say it was worth the $8-10 difference. Only time will tell if it really goes out of print or the Limited Edition was BS.

Wasn't it $23 on its opening release day?

My bad. I double checked my DVDProfiler database and I actually paid $24.99 at Best Buy on release day. The $28 must be the regular price. But hell since I used to paying $15-18 for new releases, this is just a bad trend that seems to be expanding. Case in point: Cinderella Man Collector's editon $31.39, Regular edition $17.88. Jarhead Collector's edition $27.97, Regular Edition $15.98. This is the new reality.

I hate the new 2-tier pricing. I just don't buy the DVD, period, now.

I got Batman Begins from Amazon as they actually had a good deal on it. Mystic River, I waited almost a year to pick it up after seeing it in the theaters and liking it a lot - I wasn't willing to take the craptacular snapper 1-disc.

They just don't get my money, period. I only buy when I can get the 2-disc for close to the price of the single-disc. That's my way of protesting.

I assume the reason for this two-tiered pricing is so sales of extra-laden DVDs will go down and then the studios can say, "Look. People don't like extras" and then they can stop paying to produce them altogether.

I mean, MGM claimed for years that consumers didn't want extras on their DVDs. Even though that company has been absorbed into another, perhaps those marketing folks' ideas caught on.

And no, I don't seriously think that's what's happening.

Seems to be the new thing with Warner Brothers, which NEVER did this. They will be doing it again with Harry Potter GOF. Sucks enough when they double dip on it in a year as it is.

Exactly. Why is it Warner's fault that Circuit City chooses the cheap one to be the loss leader?

Perhaps, it's Warner's fault that they made 2 editions in the first place that allow retailers to choose the cheaper one as a loss leader (since they figure most people who pick the 1-disc edition anyway) :p

If they only made a 2-discc edition, then retailers would have to make it a loss leader if they follow their norm to compete with competitors.

They used to make only 2-disc editions. Terminator 3, Matrix Reloaded, and The Aviator come to mind. All were roughly $15 during release week. The good ol' days...

Of course, maybe releasing both versions will lessen the chance of a 2-discer going OOP. Fox used to issue 2-disc sets, only to quietly replace them with single disc versions. Fight Club, The Abyss for example. I know they're widely available again as 2-discs, but for awhile, Fight Club 2-disc was tough to find.

the best buy by me has at least thirty fight club ones.
that's OOP now?