“Law & Order: The Complete Series” is headed for DVD release on November 8, 2011. Universal has packaged all 20 seasons of “Law & Order” into a boxed set containing a total of 104 discs, 11 of seasons of which have never been available on DVD. The boxed set contains deleted and extended scenes, commentaries, cast member profiles and quite a few featurettes. The dual layer discs are formatted in both Full Screen 1.33:1 and Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1, with Dolby Digital 2.0 for audio.
“Law & Order” is tied with “Gunsmoke” as the longest running drama series ever. And, spread out across 104 discs might be a reason why the series is being released only on DVD, not Blu-ray Disc. One would think though, with single-sided Blu-ray Discs holding 5-times the amount of data as a DVD, Universal may have squeezed the series onto 20 or so Blu-rays. That’s a lot less trips to the disc player.
Wondering what a 104-disc collection will cost? Universal has priced “Law & Order” The Complete Series” at $699.99 MSRP, which is the most expensive DVD set I’ve ever reported on. You can expect retailers to discount the price quite a bit. But even so, I’d be very interested in how many of the boxed sets Universal is expecting to sell.