I've noticed lately that Disney dvds are leaning towards really plain, horrible grey disc "art". I just got both Bedknobs & Broomsticks and Pete's Dragon. They are both plain grey discs with the name of the movie on them. Previous editions had great, colourful art from the movies on them. Does this bother anyone else ?

I rarely ever see the actual disc, so no.

as long as they have the movie (maybe some extra content) on it and it doesn't skip, pixelate or freeze who gives a shit what the actual disc looks like.

I don't really care about the disc art, it's just fun to look at the art on the disc if it's there.

Agreed. I stopped caring about stuff like that long ago.

but when the disk art is something like this, it matters imho

First they came for my DVD inserts, and I said nothing.
Then they came for the colorful DVD artwork, and I said nothing.
Then they came for me...

I wish all discs looked like the Borat disc, then we'd have continuity among all discs.

Rather ironic since back in the early days of DVD, Disney would list "disc art" as one of the special features.

Yeah, don't you see? They weren't liars. It was a special feature and now they've taken it away.

If the disc "art" bothers you, why don't you put the disc in your player and watch the movie on the disc instead of the disc itself?








Sorry, I couldn't resist!

Is it my weary old eyes or is some of the wording on the Paramount discs practically invisible?

then what? what you say? what you say!?!?!?

Just another way of making legitimate product look less attractive compared to bootlegs. Some dollar-store DVDs have color disc labeling so it can't cost THAT much.

My main packaging/labeling peeves right now are this, 2-sided discs with no printing on side 2, no inserts, cardboard slipcovers that are not shrinkwrapped (so stores stick their price tags and crap on them) and those STUPID Eco-Cases with holes in them.

I get that there are those who are only interested in the content of a DVD release, but what's really being accomplished by flocking to threads like this or a recent one about artwork just to insist that you're above caring about such superficial things?

The Grammy's recognize package design as a category, so I think a case can be made that on some level, the aesthetics of the actual tangible product do matter. Will it ruin the purchase or taint my enjoyment of the actual feature? Of course not; it's not that important. But in the context of evaluating the aesthetics of the actual tangible product, I think it's fair to express disappointment.

Because at the end of his post, he asks if it bothers anyone else. In this case, most people don't care.

I wonder how much disc art actually costs? I know it would vary greatly, but would love to see some real world numbers on what it cost company x to put fancy art on release x versus plain labeling.

Another obvious thing to consider is if the studios want to make discs look more attractive compared to downloads and VOD, this is NOT the way to do it. (Being the cheap bastard I am I thought about illegally copied discs before non-physical media.) I did a paper for a business class about how record labels have really been missing the boat by continuing to sell CDs in boring packaging; getting a little creative would at least make them stand out in stores and entice people into buying them.

The dollar-store discs I was talking about are titles made just for selling at such places, from companies like Digiview. Most of these are public-domain titles that cost nothing to license, so that's the main reason they can sell them for a buck, but if disc labeling was a major expense they wouldn't likely be using full-color printing as they have been, and puzzling that new titles selling at full price cut corners this way.

Well, as long as they keep that mindset they shouldn't be too upset when us consumers try to save money any way WE can, by not always buying their discs at the higher prices they would like us to.

I understand why a non-tangible addition to your digital library would be antithetical to the collector mentality. But I have to ask: is it more important to only have physical items in your collection, or to have the content you want in your library?

I've been fortunate, in that my taste is far too pedestrian for the titles that interest me to fall into the "digital only" realm. I'll take physical over digital every time, but I'm not willing to go so far as to say that I won't go for digital if that's the only available legitimate format.

For me, it's content and it seems silly to choose boot over a download when all the boot is, is a download burned to something.

I guess since buying a bootleg isn't like stealing a car, or purse snatching, it makes everything ok.

Just want to clarify here: When I used the term "download," I only intended to describe legitimate digital purchases (such as from Amazon, iTunes, etc.). If my remarks came off as me saying I would be fine with illegal rips and/or bootleg discs, then that is not at all what I was trying to convey. I have no personal use for either of these, or any other illicit format.

What I meant was, as much as I prefer disc, if something I really want is only available in another format, then I'm not prepare to exclude that format on principle. It's no different to me than keeping some stuff on VHS because it hasn't been made available on disc.

If a bootlegger can legitimately download a movie, strip off any copy protection, they'll sell it. I'm just saying there's no reason to ever support a guy selling bootlegs.

I'm in total agreement here. Disc art, while not required, makes the product more aesthetically pleasing, just like the cover art. I have plenty of discs where the disc art is really well thought out-- it's fun to see what a designer comes up with seeing as their design needs to be round with a hole through the middle.....
I do miss it when I open a disc and get the plain disc--it conveys the impression the studio just doesn't care enough about their product to make it look good.

I have dealt with several DVD duplication factories and they have always included the disc art with the replication cost. They've never discounted our orders using plain text artwork. We always suggest to our clients that they send a nice, full colour high resolution JPEG or Photoshop file for their disc artwork because the price is no different.

The factories usually offer either offset printing, which is a nice, crisp matte photo printed on the disc or silkscreen printing which is glossy and usually used for block graphics as photos tend to look pixelated.

The plain labels that Warner and many other companies are using look more like a thermal print.

I'm sure the studios, with their high volumes, have the clout to really grind the different replication plants to get the lowest price and the plain artwork might be a concession of getting that really low price.