Pre-Order The Good Place: The Complete Series (Blu-ray) Available for Preorder (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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[Joe Isham]

Forking day one!

 

[TravisR]

Fantastic show.

 

[JoshuaB.]

Fantastic show.

Fully agreed! I contemplated picking up the UK Blu-rays, but I like having a complete series release in North America. I hope we can see future BDs of Parks and Rec and Brooklyn Nine Nine as well!

 

[John Dirk]

Yep. Initially a great concept and show. Personally I thought this one could [and should] have gone on for many more seasons, like Curb has. For some reason, [IMO anyway] after maybe the first couple, it seemed the producers were intentionally trying to wind the show down with increasingly over-the top fluff.

I know this thread wasn't intended to solicit reviews. Sorry about that but this is a show I really hate to see end this way.

 

[Jake Lipson]

after maybe the first couple, it seemed the producers were intentionally trying to wind the show down with increasingly over-the top fluff.

I totally disagree with that. But if you'd like to discuss it in more detail with spoilers, we have a thread for the final season in the TV section.

 

[Jake Lipson]

On another note, why is Shout Factory releasing this? I know they handled the DVDs of the first three seasons too. But it feels a bit weird to me that Universal would license out a current show to a third-party distributor rather than just releasing it themselves. NBC Universal Television is the producer, so Universal would have had the distribution rights automatically if they hadn't given it out to Shout. I don't really care --- Shout will do a good job with the release -- but it does seem unusual that it wouldn't be Universal.

Also: the packaging shot says at the top of the spine 9 BLU-RAY SET. According to Shout's Facebook post announcing this last night, there will be a dedicated disc of bonus features. If that's the case, that implies there will be two discs per season, plus the extras one.

 

[David Weicker]

Well, for two discs per season, that is only 6-7 22 minute episodes per disc. Not a lot of data

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Two BD discs for a sitcom season is sufficient.

As to why not Universal, I think the answer is fairly clear. Disc sales are in a massive decline. TV on disc was one of the first categories to nosedive and as a format variation, TV on BD was essentially DOA more than ten years ago. The number of units this would likely sell is simply far below what Universal’s overhead on the title would be. If this sells two thousand copies or whatever the number is, that may not be enough units to recoup what it was cost Universal’s home entertainment division to put out. Or, the number is so small that it’s just not worth the effort it would take and the resources that would be devoted to making it happen. However, Shout is a smaller company with less overhead and different sales goals. It’s a win-win for everyone. Universal retains digital distribution which is where the big money is. Universal gets payment from Shout Factory. Shout gets a new title that will probably be a bigger seller than many of their other releases. And the consumer gets the choice between digital and physical. You’re gonna see more and more of this in the future.

That’s a big part of why Warner and Universal are merging their home video departments. Those departments were set up to run when physical media was taking in $20 billion in sales a year, and with sales now down to $3 billion a year (and still shrinking), those divisions will need to be much, much smaller so that the cost of running them returns to being a figure that’s proportionate to their income. But that will take some time to get up and running and it’s still possible that they’d want to focus more on single titles and continue to outsource other projects.

This is a big improvement from just a couple years ago, when many titles got stuck in this limbo over “it would cost too much to put out ourselves, but is worth too much to let anyone else put out either.”

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Two BD discs for a sitcom season is sufficient.

Hell, these are 13 episode seasons. Two discs per season is almost overkill considering WB gets 24 episode Big Bang Theory seasons onto two discs.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. But the DVD sets are comfortably two disc season releases, so the Blus should have room to spare.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

In that case, yeah, each season could be a single disc. Maybe they’re using BD-25s rather than BD-50s. The 25s are cheaper to manufacture and more shelf stable for the consumer, so as long as you don’t mind getting up to switch discs, it’s probably a better choice long term for collectors.

 

[dawnshadow]

I’m not buying if they put it on BD-25s, but I doubt they would.

 

[Jake Lipson]

What difference would it make to the quality of the set if it's on a BD-25 vs. a BD-50? As long as it's a Blu-ray, they've got my sale.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

For a 22 minute program encoded at a high bitrate AVC file with lossless audio, a file size of 3-4GB each would be very generous and more than necessary. Which easily gets you to fitting a season on one BD-50 or two BD-25s.

Most people would be surprised of the actual file sizes of the different movies and episodes on disc if they knew what they were.

If you’re thinking of a disc as a long term storage medium, a BD-25 is probably a better option. When discs go bad, it’s usually dual layered discs, and it’s usually the glue between layers. Long term, your odds are probably better with a single layer disc.

 

[Tommy R]

My wife and I are watching the final two episodes tonight on our DVR, so I don’t know yet how it ends, but it’s among our favorite recent shows. Definitely worth owning on blu, as I can see us going through the entirety of it every couple years. I haven’t bought tv of dvd/blu in quite a while, but this one is a must!

 

[Jake Lipson]

I don’t know yet how it ends

I think you'll be very satisfied.

 

[dawnshadow]

What difference would it make to the quality of the set if it's on a BD-25 vs. a BD-50? As long as it's a Blu-ray, they've got my sale.

The UK sets consist of BD-50s so they would be superior on the unlikely occasion that Shout used BD-25s.

You can never have too much bitrate and you can easily tell the difference between something that has enough bitrate and something that’s been crammed onto a BD-25.

 

[WhitneyG]

Anyone have any confirmation whether these will be the extended versions? So far Shout Factory's DVD releases have had mostly extended episodes (Chapter 1 and 13 were not) but the rest of the first three seasons episodes were extended (except Chapters 2, 12, 14, 15, 27, and 28, which as far as I can tell do not have extended cuts). I'd hope that they correct the missing ones, but what really concerns me is the shift in the UK releases. The season three UK blu ray release is all broadcast length. I'd hope that Shout does what they do best and puts out the best product possible.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I don't know but would assume that whatever they put out will be what Mike Schur wants to be out there.

Since we know that there will be a dedicated bonus disc, it seems reasonable to assume he will be involved in this release.

 

[DaveF]

Blu-ray!!!

I thought The Good Place was only released on DVD, which meant we were living in The Bad Place!!! Maybe not!


Any word on what's included? Extended episodes? Commentaries? Out-takes? (Podcast promised outtakes!) I might have to buy this for the special features.