The item has been removed from the website, when the problems are fixed, they will reship a new copy to you. We are putting you on the list for a reship, we do not have an expected time for the reship.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

——

I suggest that if you want to be sure to be on the reship list, that you contact customer support yourself.

[...] Marsha Warfield (Night Court) cameos as a fan in the phonebooth [...]

They’re apparently on Twitter (@WarnerArchive,) for whatever that might be worth…

What price would you expect to pay for this product as it is?

I still don’t think it’s unreasonable to demand for the price that is being charged to fix the audio, chapter, and labeling problems, and use higher capacity media. THAT is what makes the 34.95 price unacceptable.

There is surely a difference cost structure between a mass-produced product (like DVD sets released to, shelved at, and sold through retailers nationwide) and a manufactured-on-demand product (like these Warner Archive DVDs.)

The economies of scale for any manufacturing process usually hold that when you manufacture a greater quantity of items, the per-unit cost of those items become smaller.

That is to say: if you manufacture 10,000 items, the manufacturing cost for each of those 10,000 units is surely lower than the cost when you manufacture just one item at a time.

To the extent that its the cost of manufacturing good that guides retail pricing, I wouldn’t automatically assume that the costs of this manufacture-on-demand Warner Archive model are so much lower as to self-evidently justify lowered retail pricing (even with the model’s other cost advantages–no warehousing, more immediate payment/cash flow, etc.)

Fundamentally, it comes down to whether you want the show. As I discussed in the review, you don’t have as many options for purchase with a limited, non-commercial release, but it is available for those fans who want it. The other choice is not getting any more Night Court at all. The economics no longer seem to exist for traditional releases of old, long-running shows.

Regarding Amazon pricing, typically they charge 20-30% LESS than MSRP (for instance, I got the Season 1 Bionic Woman DVD set for 26.99, 32% off MSRP of 39.99.) WB is charging full MSRP (well geez, they ARE the manufacturer after all). You would think by removing the middleman that costs could be saved and passed on to the consumer, but due to the monopoly of being the only place to buy the set, they can charge whatever they want. And IMO (again), the price does not justify the quality/defects.

I did have the same problem you did with chapters — I much prefer shows where there’s a chapter stop right after the credit sequence, so when you’re watching several episodes in a row it’s easier to scan through.

Given that bootleggers charge at least $25 (last time I checked) for a season set with half the number of episodes, and Amazon charges more than $35 for a commercially released season, I find the pricing reasonable. Of course, opinions may differ.

On my copies, the first episode of the first disc has an audio/video synchronization problem where it is off by about a second. It starts near the middle of the episode and lasts through the end of the episode. I haven’t yet found any audio problems with other episodes yet, and I don’t know if any other customers have the same audio issue.

Each episode only had 2 chapter marks each, at 10:00 and 20:00…none at the credits, title sequence or scene breaks (where commercials would have been). This is very amateurish and makes for poor DVD navigation.

All-in-all, this set is not even close to being worth the $34.95 competition-free price tag that WB is charging. Monopoly at its finest.

But I guess that depends on how much you care about those kinds of details. We tend to get obsessive about shows we like and want the best available sourcing.