I rented both Smokin' Aces and Children of Men today. Both disks are just silver with black text. Is this the norm now?

Yes. Same with Paramount.

I think they're degrading SD disc art to make HD disc art look even better!

talk about being desperate!

The Borat DVD has no artwork at all, yet it's also the best artwork, go figure.

They've been doing this for years.

I don't care about disc artwork that much. But I have to say that sometimes disc artwork can be very neat like those in The Simpsons series. For me, the most important thing in disc artwork is just the title so I don't mix things up and that's all.

That being said... I think this could be the next "does it has an insert?" thing.

No disc art = no sale!


Just kidding. I couldn't care less.

I guess they are cutting costs any way they can.

Gee, I guess Disney *was* right, disk art *is* now a bonus feature.

All of this is total conjecture on my part, but I rented a film from Netflix once (I cannot remember the title) and I later bought the movie. The Netflix disc had the plain disc art described above, but the store bought one had a full color graphic. That made me think that with the bulk quantities of discs that Netflix and other rental places buy they probably get a deal from the studio by having them eliminate color disc artwork, cases and inserts for the discs.

well, as someone who ONLY keeps the discs in a see through binder, disc art is crucial for me telling me what movie it is! I can't tell you how frustrating it is to look at a page in my book with just a bunch of silver staring at me, and I have to get magnifying glasses to see the .7 font in the inner circle that describes the movie title!

obviously, I am NOT a fan of DVD -18s either. : )

May I ask what you do with the empty cases?

Looks like Universal is going back to its old ways. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they used to not have any artwork on the disc a few years ago? I remember the original release of Mallrats just had the logo on the plain silver disc.

I hope no other studios follow suit and this doesn't become a trend. The main reason why I hate the no disc art thing is because fingerprints show up a lot easier with no disc art, which is annoying as hell.

Their old Collector's Edition dvds had no artwork either.

That is the case for Season 2 of Doctor Who too. The Netflix version had a gray background with for rental only printed on it. The only difference in the content I could see was that they forced you to watch a BBC America ad before you could watch anything. The retail discs have various photographs of characters on them.

I rented this movie from Gameznflix and thought I had gotten a bootleg until I saw the Fox Logo also imprinted on the disc.

I keep em in a BIG box in storage. And I keep the covers/inserts in a 3 ring binder (in plastic sleeves of course) just in case I ever sell these things.

After the box of empty cases start overflowing, I give a lot of them away to anyone who is willing to take them off my hands...

I live in RTP, NC... and have a bunch to unload, if you are interested. 1 disc cases only (I keep the 2 disc ones because they are so hard to find)...