For the past few years I was ready to write-off DVDs altogether. As I started to pick up more Blu-rays I was just done with DVD. I pickd up a 4K TV and player. And even Blu-ray was getting long in the tooth... But then I looked at my collection and saw my snap case DVDs. These things were once the bane of my collection; now, they are the highlight of my collection and not just the DVD portion. I love them. The cardboard is so nostalgia now, and I didn't see that coming. In the early 2000s I would trade up every single snap case DVD for their plastic cousins. Shame!
These snap cases have so much character, the chapters on the inside cover, they are just too cool. Their fragility is what made me consider tossing them all those years ago. But I'm glad I held onto some of them because now is the time to collect them. You can see more and more YouTubers talking about them. You could feel that collectors are starting to really lust after these things again - well some of us. Out of my entire physical media collection these are probably some of the coolest discs, and the things I like to show off the most to guests when they come over.
Also, and this has been discussed to the ends of the internet, but some DVDs will never get HD upgrades, nor can we count on most of the stuff on DVD making it to streaming. TV shows mostly will remain on DVD and possibly never get a Blu-ray release. This is another part of my DVD collection that I adore. Tons of older shows that sit on my shelf, waiting for the mood to strike. Most are not on streaming services, so these are just gems.
Like Laserdisc and VHS, these DVD snap cases are such a throwback format to the '90s and they look great on the shelf. Most of these have original poster art, and as WB brings some catalog titles to 4K they have ditched this original art for something less costly. To some collectors and fans, this is no big deal. After all, a lot of DVD and Blu-ray releases have included the OG art. But with some of these new 4K releases the art just loses any soul, or let's say character, that the old poster art has. Some art is so iconic that it stings to replace it with what we got with, say, Gremlins. Collectors are going to buy these releases, but they will never be proud of them, and they will most certainly never display them cover-out.
To my knowledge these were only used for Warner Brothers catalog titles and their studios like New Line Cinema. These DVDs have helped me learn to love my collection as a whole, and not just the pretty, slipcover collectibles like Arrow and Vinegar Syndrome Blu-rays. My collection has grown to be quite vast across different formats. I've learned to collect what I want and enjoy and not only what I see other collectors doing on YouTube or Instagram...
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