Taking home a box set of any kind is a little more satisfying for me than a single disc, no matter if it’s Blu-ray or DVD. It shouldn’t make a difference, since quality trumps quantity — but a box set feels less ephemeral, offering more that a night’s worth of entertainment. The best ones also display a little more care in their art and extras, to the extent that you might give them a special place on your shelf.
Over the years, I’ve learned not to buy a box set solely because it has a show or movie series I like. It’s better to scrutinize a few important details first. And if the set doesn’t live up to expectations, you may want to stick with streaming versions for a while longer, assuming they’re online.
What are the potential pitfalls of box sets?
From video and sound to the actual box
Your overriding concern should be the fidelity of the transfer. While anything on Blu-ray is going to output in 1080p or 4K, that doesn’t mean the source material was actually mastered natively for one of those resolutions. For the best results, anything shot on film needs to be scanned with the target resolution in mind (or higher), and titles with CG effects spliced in may need those effects re-rendered or completely replaced, assuming that’s feasible. Sometimes, the most you can hope for with a set is upscaled 4K based on something called a 2K intermediate — a digital conversion that was once used to make assembling the end movie easier.
You could potentially end up with worse, depending on how lazy a conversion was, or whether there was any decent source material available. Some box sets can be a mish-mash of different fidelity levels, particularly when a company is trying to pack as much content per disc as possible. For that reason, it’s best to keep your ear to the ground for any remastering announcements, or at least check that you’re buying the latest version of a collection. Even I Love Lucy has a superior 2024 Blu-ray set.
Another incentive to be picky is included content. Twin Peaks, for example, has a number of different Blu-ray releases. One of these is The Television Collections, which includes the original two seasons plus The Return — but if you pick up From Z to A, you’ll get that content plus the movie Fire Walk With Me, which you need to see to make more sense of The Return. It’s also possible for studios to drop extras that were in previous versions of something, though you should always prioritize the fidelity of the core material.
One thing to be concerned about is the box itself. Because bundling a large number of discs gets expensive, companies cut corners, say by stacking multiple discs on the same spindle, or using easily breakable hinges. Naturally, there may not be much choice about how the best version of a release is packaged — but it can be worth hunting down SteelBook or other special editions. If nothing else, you should consider your own storage solutions if discs are stacked together, since friction will damage playable surfaces.
A few lesser issues to worry about
Check those release dates and region codes
This is an issue that can apply to any Blu-ray release, but is obviously intensified with box sets: region codes. There are three regions — A, B, and C — and some collections are exclusive to a specific region. It can be tempting to order a rare set from overseas, but if you’re living in the US (a Region A country) and the discs are Region B, they simply won’t play unless you have an imported or region-free Blu-ray player. Note that while 4K UHD discs are supposed to be region-free by default, a box set could include region-locked bonus discs.
It’s also worth doublechecking the details of a product if you’re counting on download codes. Code vouchers have expiration dates, and digital platforms come and go, so codes can sometimes be useless even when the box is still shrinkwrapped. As you’d guess, downloads probably won’t work if you buy used discs, since they’re only redeemable once.
