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Surprised at how much better the packaging is than I expected. Sleeves are obviously not ideal, but these sleeves are pliable and the front of them don't extend all the way to the end of the page - so it's not a cuticle-tearing mess like Warners' Kubrick boxset. You can bend the page out a little bit, shimmy the disc out a bit, and then grab it and slide it out. Again - not ideal to have sleeves. And it's not nearly as convenient as HBO's sleeve packaging (which tends to have half the disc exposed up to the center for easy removal). But it's nothing I'm outraged about, and it looks positively lovely.

I don't understand the appeal of these book things with the disc sleeves. If you absolutely have to do a book design then the pages should just be regular disc hubs like a standard box, with art behind them. All on on one spine. Kind of like that Planet of the Apes chimp-bust set, only not the size of George Constanza's wallet.

The giant digibook from the UK Blu-ray set has to be the one of the cheapest looking things I've seen. The cover of it looks like a piece of paper tightly bound and glued down with PVA glue, and as a result has lots of air bubble underneath as if this was put together by someone at primary school. Mine has a nice tear on the bottom too, even though the sturdy outer box is mint. Clearly some kind soul who put this thing together didn't even take the time to make sure that they were't sending out damaged stuff. Another item to be returned.

What a load of shit these sets have turned out to be, relative to what they could have been. Would it really have been so hard to do one nice set that's the same in the UK, in the US, in Australia and wherever else?

Have to disagree on the UK packaging. I think it's excellent and saves shelf space. Having said that, I didn't have the problems you reported.

I'm good with the UK packaging as well. However, this is my second set to order from the UK (after Universal Monsters). What is with the lack of titles on the disc labels? Is this a Universal thing, a UK thing, or an aberation on these two sets?

It's not just Universal. Warner also has a bad habit of not labeling the discs with the movie's title.

Graham wrote:Have to disagree on the UK packaging. I think it's excellent and saves shelf space. Having said that, I didn't have the problems you reported.

I think the inside is quite beautiful and, yes, I'm glad it's very compact too, however the cover appears to be a piece of paper that's glued on and this isn't ideal with a thick spine. Mine's very loose around the spine, hence the tear, and has air bubbles all over the front from less than optimal gluing.

I'd definitely send it back then as mine has none of those issues. Sounds like you got a duffer.

The UK standard edition is currently available for GBP 61.75 as part of Amazon's "Black Friday" deals: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008RLD1VY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The UK limited edition (Amazon's stock had sold out anyway if I remember correctly) has this up on the page: "Item Under Review - This product is not currently offered by Amazon.co.uk because a customer recently told us that the item he or she received was not as described."

Cheers. I'll just get zavvi to give me a refund instead of a replacement and go for that, especially as Amazon UK has decided to offer me another Prime trial.

I kind of lost track of this saga of this release after Nick's reviews led me to cancel my initial UK pre-order. I understand that the Frenzy credits were fixed, but most of the other warts remain. Correct? Anyone want to give me a Cliff's Notes rundown on the pros and cons of the standard UK set versus the US? Are the discs identical? Packaging preferences?

I'll start: the UK's Psycho disc is, as I understand it, the same as the standlone, and thus has the short that the UK Psycho release did. UK set doesn't have the booklet but it's not supposed to be anything special I don't think. UK packaging seems to be better than the AU release: compact digibook vs. giant fold out cardboard chain.

The UK set doesn't include the Vertigo Mono track.

Looking at the blu-rays, I realize I'm really no picture quality expert. I see the red edges in Rope, Marnie is very (weirdly?) grainy ... But I think only Frenzy and Family plot are ugly to look at. For Frenzy it's pretty obvious why, but why does Family Plot look that way?

Nick I'm pretty sure said The Man Who Knew Too Much was pretty strong, but Robert Harris said it was pretty bad.

Picture Quality on the films I've viewed so far in the set:

Shadow of a Doubt 4/5
The Man Who Knew Too Much 2/5
Rope 3/5

The ship has sailed on Fingerhut.

It's now going for 3 bills on the site (Out-of-Stock currently).

PfR73 wrote:

Feego wrote:Weren't there differences between the UK and US Psycho blu-rays (menus and maybe even some of the supplements), and they were both region free?

The UK release had the mono track in DTS HDMA while the US release only had it in DTS. Also the UK release had the AHP episode "Lamb To The Slaughter" while the US release omitted it. I'm curious if the UK box set has the UK Psycho or the US Psycho.

I don't know if anyone else has confirmed this first-hand yet, but the disc of Psycho in the UK box definitely does contain the DTS HD-MA track (alongside a 5.1 remix) and Lamb to the Slaughter, and appears to be identical to the previous UK standalone release.

Interestingly, Lamb to the Slaughter isn't mentioned in the specs on the relevant page of the package - presumably they simply recycled the US artwork for the main "book", and stuck it in a UK-produced slipcase to conform to BBFC requirements. But I'm playing it in the background as I type this.

As for the other discs, Family Plot is indeed as hideous as everyone has been saying (frankly, it looks like an uprezzed and fairly elderly SD master with a ton of digital gunk smeared on top, and comfortably ranks amongst the worst BD transfers I've ever seen), and Frenzy has clearly been DNRed to hell and back - but Marnie was better in motion than the screencaps suggested. It's certainly miles ahead of my ancient letterboxed DVD. A quick skip through The Birds suggests that it's a decent transfer of notoriously tricky material (all those process shots, Tippi Hedren's close-ups in soft-focus, etc.).

Put it like this, of the discs I've played so far, Family Plot is the only one that doesn't even look like HD - everything else does at least represent a marked advance on the DVDs.

david hare wrote:Michael play Marnie again and try this:

Keep toggling between "pause" and "Play" over and over. Every time you pause and then go back to motion you will eventually see the hailstorm of electronic/digital snow that is bombarding the image and giving the image in motion that ghastly undertow of noise. To me it looks like some kind of electronic/earthing problem as though the telecine desk was being invaded by RFwhile the technician had dozed off. It all stops and goes away at Chapter 17 and there's not a trace of it for the next 20 minutes.

Of the entire box Marnie was the one they completely wrecked through what I cna only assume was sheer inattention.

Don't get me wrong - I'm fully aware of the problems. It's just that I found the noise much easier to tune out than I did the issues with Frenzy or Family Plot.

david hare wrote:Michael play Marnie again and try this:

Keep toggling between "pause" and "Play" over and over. Every time you pause and then go back to motion you will eventually see the hailstorm of electronic/digital snow that is bombarding the image and giving the image in motion that ghastly undertow of noise. To me it looks like some kind of electronic/earthing problem as though the telecine desk was being invaded by RFwhile the technician had dozed off. It all stops and goes away at Chapter 17 and there's not a trace of it for the next 20 minutes.

Of the entire box Marnie was the one they completely wrecked through what I can only assume was sheer inattention.

I did this exactly and saw the exact same troubles. It is indeed very annoying.

It appears the films in the Universal box set are going to start to get individual releases in early summer as amazon.com listings are beginning to go up. $16.99 pre-orders.

I wonder if they won't be holding back certain more popular titles for a bit, though. I don't see listings for Vertigo, Rear Window or The Birds yet, for instance.

I imagine those will arrive in the Fall. That'll give the box set a full year to be sold due to the popularity of those titles.

There is a separate UK listing for The Birds.

Yeah different territories have different policies. Rear Window and Vertigo are singular pre-orders in Japan...