I know many of you will disagree with me on this and have blathered with me about it elsewhere, but after today's release of both the Marlon Brando box and the Gary Cooper Signature Series, I am about to lose it with WB and their slim case switch over.

I'll state my points:

- Slim cases look cheap (see Wal-mart bargain movie bins)
- Can't read the spine without a magnifying glass.
- No style on the spine anymore. Using boring font with no creativity.
- Feel fragile in my hands. I like my DVD's to be protected.
- In a library, displays very poorly.
- With multiple discs, looks and transports stupid (see Maltese Falcon release).

I for one do not care about space saving, but I know others do.

WB was the one studio I thought that delivered over and over. They took care with the packaging, content and movies. Now it seems that the packaging is at best a crap shoot. Looks like most releases are now in slim case only but sometimes they stuff paper packaing and keep cases in randomly (see Bogart box sets.) It seems that WB even acknowledges that a keep case is better - see the Marlon Brando box where Mutiny on the Bounty is in a keep case while the others are not. It seems they want to showcase the best movie in the set by taking extra care. They did not do this however with the Maltese Falcon in the Bogart set... I'm confused.

Who can I complain to about this? I HATE the slim cases and the lack of care they show with the packaging. I'd jump to HD-DVD but I hate their small rounded edged cases even more... Am I alone here?

Slimcase packing was brought out for consumers who began to run out of storage space in their DVD libraries. At first I wasn't happy, but my collection has expanded marginally this year, so it isn't a bad idea afterall.

The Bogart Signature Collection Vol 2 looks a tad bizarre with two keep cases, and the rest in the slim packaging.

Bottom line: I love classic film and am not all that concerned. Thinking about it in the long run, as long as the film itself is of Warners high standard, packaging isn't that much of an issue.

I love the slim packs. I wish all my dvds came in them. The keepcases waste too much space. The packaging doesn't really affect me at all, unless it were to switch to cheapo cardboard or something. I like the slim cases just for the less space they take up.

I love the slim cases. I mean why have a thick case (1.2 inch case) for a single dvd thats .0005 mm thick.

I made those measurements up btw.

I like slimcases for tv boxsets in order to save space. However, I loathe them for movie sets. The reason? I like to have the option of selling any weaker films in a collection. Although purchasing the set usually makes good financial sense vs. buying the individual movies (thus making the 'weaker' films essentially bonuses), it is nice to be able to reduce the cost even further by selling off any unwanted portions. This may seem like heresy to completists, but I like to make up my own sets with favorites. I have done this with Bond collections, Steve McQueen, John Wayne, and others. Of course, if a set goes OOP, having the original movies together in the slipcase would be great, but I can always buy a second set for spec purposes if I want to go that route. Besides, I'm one of those kids who likes to open my gifts & play with them...not keep them MIB on the shelf (a la 40-Year-Old Virgin).

I assume you mean vol. 1 with Casablanca and Sierra Madre? Because I only have vol. 2, and it's all slim.

The lack of spine means nothing to me personally. If all my DVDs were like that, maybe, but when they are housed in a box, no big deal.

However, was anyone else's box for Bogart vol. 2 a little too big, or was mine just messed up in shipping?

I hear ya. I liked the new look until this week, when the Brando Collection came out. The only way to get the movies in the collection is to buy the box set, since they are not being released individually, except for Mutiny On The Bounty... which I'll be buying on HD-DVD next week. I therefore have absolutely no use for the Mutiny that comes with the set... hard to sell it cause it's a slimline (probably no barcode), can't break up the box & file the other titles individually either (not effectively, anyways).

Slimcases are great. I DVD had adopted these right from the beginning instead of experimenting with jewel cases. When you have a large collection, you can appreciate the space saving.

How do they display poorly if they're part of a box set? Just have the spine of the box facing outwards, or if the front looks really good display it on the top of your storage unit facing forward.

In the end, I have to go with the advantage of saving shelf space, especially when we're talking about something that I'm going to look at for all of 2 seconds before choosing what movie I'm going to watch.

What makes you think people keep the movies in the slipcase? I always toss the box into the trash with the shrinkwrap and then sort them onto the shelf.

That being said, I was a doubter when Warners first switched to slimcases, but I think they actually look nice on the shelf, especially when you get several next to each other. The only problem is they need to be brightly colored to standout -- Anchor Bay's Spaghetti Western set is all brown and hard to pick out unless you know where to look.

No, they don't - and so what if they do? At less then $10 per disc, they are cheap.

You need glasses, because I can read them just fine

Meh. That's what the cover's for. Keeping everything alphabetically, I don't think I even notice spines.

What do you do, play soccer with them? They're plenty sturdy, and unlike your beloved Amarays, there's no real chance of floaters - and even if the disc is off the hub in a slim-case, it aint going anywhere, and won't get scratched like in an Amaray.

I care more about how it displays on my TV, and having the box's spine displayed looks just fine.

Yeah, they FUBARed the Bogart/MF collection, but that was an exception - the stand-alone MF had a slip-case.

Oh, and the Astaire/Rogers Collection? One of the best packaging jobs EVER, with a thick, sturdy holographic case and double sided inserts for all the slim-cases - the wonderful job WB did on that pretty much kills every single one of your points.

If I had to choose between a Warner snapper case and a Warner thin case, I choose the thin case. Snappers were much crappier than the new thinpaks.

If someone actually throws away part of the packaging, then I figure that they don't care about packaging and shouldn't be bitching about another aspect of it.

Count me in as a strong supporter of thinpaks. Any opportunity to save space on the packaging is welcome!

I do like slimcases, but the Bogart 2 set bothered me because it was inconsistant with what WB has been releasing up to this point. Slimcases are best for television shows, not movies.

Having said that, if the slimcases are going to continue for big sets like Bogart 2, the box that contains them all needs to be sturdier. This one was flimsy under the weight of all of those discs.

Exactly.

If I didn't hate the hassle of tracking down and printing custom art work, I'd convert all of my collection to thin cases.

Actually Warner is giving me packaging I have wanted for years. I loved the Mel Brooks box set and all of the Warner sets using thin cases. I have major space issues and this really helps.

Don't like the way the thin cases look on the shelf? Turn the box the other way and display the spine of the box they are in.

I completely agree, except for the part about hating slimcases for movie sets. I'll admit selling of movies in slimcases is nearly impossible because most retailers will recognize it's supposed to be part of a boxed set, but luckily I have a flea market nearby with a record shop that isn't all that picky about what they take. I don't get a whole heck of a lot for it in store credit, and they don't have a ton of stuff I want in trade, but I'm always able to find something.

I only plan on keeping "...Last Crusade" and the bonus material when I buy the Indiana Jones Collection, and even though those aren't in slimcases, I seriously doubt any major retailer is gonna take the first two films because they know they were only released in a boxed set. Seems stupid to me though, because they have to realize that some people might want one of the two first movies and not the others. I also plan to do something similar with The Matrix Collection, but in that case just keeping the "making-of" discs and trading the rest in at the flea market. Of course it's a bit harder to justify that with things like the Mel Brooks set, because "Young Frankenstein" is the only film in that set I think I'd want. As it is, the new anamorphic version is fine, since it seems to have been a crap shoot as to whether you'd get the anamorphic version in the set (however if anyone has a Young Frankenstein slimcase they want to sell or trade, let me know).

One thing that does bother me a lot, slimcase or no, is when the studio completely changes the cover art, and it looks like something created by a monkey that's been trained to use Photoshop, and not trained very well at that. Other than that, though, bring on the slimcases!!!

Problem with digipaks is that if they break, it's impossible to replace them...with slimcases, you can at least buy an empty one and stick the disc and the cover paper innit.

Juilus Caesar is also available separately in a keepcase. Is it a slimcase in the box set?

Yes, Julius Ceasar is in a slimcase.

Julius Caesar is a slimcase in the box set. I was also wrong about Mutiny, it's a keepcase. (DOH!) Still can't break-up the boxset though, unless I want to file slipcases in with my regular collection, they'd be harder to find that way.

I have a bunch of them mixed in with standard keepcases (and HD DVD cases). I don't find that it makes films particuarly hard to find.