Is there any difference between buying the five-season Angel TV series DVD collection as opposed to buying the seasons individually?
It’s cheaper to buy the seasons individually (it is on Amazon, anyway), but I was wondering if there is anything different about the big box collection. For example, there is no “play all” option on the individual season discs; is “play all” an option on the collection, or is it just a bunch of season sets packaged together? (I’m asking because I HATE not being able to just pop a disc in and let it play through.)
Any extra features on the collection that aren’t on the individual season discs? Are the collection discs on full screen or on wide screen (the individual seasons were issued in wide screen, weirdly enough.)
What country are you in? I ask because a complete set of the Angel DVDs isn’t yet available in region 1 (the U.S.A.) yet. We have the five separate season sets, but no big box.
We finally got a complete box set with all seven seasons of Buffy back in November, which contains 40 DVDs (39 discs covering seven seasons and an exclusive bonus disc with new extra features). I believe something similar was available in other regions before ours. However, they just reused the exact same discs from the original season sets, in brand-new packaging, so don’t expect any new disc features – even the printed graphics on each disc were identical. The packaging was pretty damn awesome, and when the set was new, Amazon.com and Deep Discount DVD both offered it for great deals – it turned out to be a fraction of the price of what the seven individual seasons would cost at a retailer like Best Buy.
I imagine we’ll get a collected Angel box set later this year, closer to the holidays, but it hasn’t been announced yet. It’ll probably have similar packaging to the Buffy “Chosen Collection,” and probably also contain a new disc of extra features. Since I’m guessing you’re not in region 1, I would say just go with the cheaper option unless you’re a stickler for those bonus features… if they include something like that at all. But I’m definitely holding out for an Angel collection over here, and preferably one I can get a good deal on.
Actually, I AM in the US, and your reply, if accurate, does not entirely surprise me. The thing is this – if I go on AMAZON, I note that individual seasons of Angel are listed at $29.97 each, which adds up to $149.85 for five seasons – not a bad price at all. However, there is also a listing for “Angel - Seasons 1-5” for $183.99! What the hell?!
Since that doesn’t seem to make a damned bit of sense, I assumed that the “Seasons 1-5” listing represented a box set with a premium price tag based on some kind of special feature or other, even though it was shown (in the picture) as five separate box sets, which suggested that it was just five individual sets.
I can’t imagine why Amazon would price the sets so weirdly when you order them all together. Just playing on demand for something that doesn’t exist yet, I guess.
That’s definitely just an option to buy all five boxes in a group. It’s not uncommon for Amazon to price a set like that strangely; for instance, when they had the Ultimate Star Trek Collection available you could have saved a few hundred bucks by just buying each set indivdually. I think it’s because they set the price on the collection based on their standard discount, but then they frequently run specials further discounting individual items so if you bite at the right time three, say, out of the five boxes will be cheaper than they normally are.
OTOH, you can also get good deals on those sets. You just have to do your homework.