All In The Family The Complete Series

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

If you want to save yourself possible disappointment buy this set directly and only from Amazon. I say this as there are a lot of boot sets floating around. They look just like a legit set but they are all on single layer discs and they quality is reduced, or worse.

I bought my set sold only by Amazon, not a third party or ‘fulfilled by’. It cost me twenty bucks more but well WELL worth it. This 28 disc set is pressed on 25 dual layer DVD’s and 3 single layer DVD’s. The three single layer discs are on Season 1 which only has 13 episodes and has 4, 4 and 5 episodes respectively on the three Season1 discs. ALL the other discs (Seasons 2-9 and the bonus disc) are ALL on dual layer discs and measure 6-8 gb. in size. If you got a set with all single layer discs, you got a boot. Your non-Amazon sellers didn’t deliberately do this, they got their sets from some middleman or other source, they didn’t know!

The boot sets will have 8 episodes (season 2-9) on a 4gb single layer DVD-too much compression! The episodes will look like VHS tapes and maybe digital artifacts in the picture as well.

I suspect most all of the reviews here where people had missing discs, duplicate discs, misprinted discs, missing episodes, book poorly printed, etc. all got boot sets that were not purchased directly from Amazon.. I know my set which came from Amazon themselves is perfect, nothing missing, duplicated. misprinted, all 25 dual layer discs. Yes you might get the same as mine from a third party source but you might not. It’s worth twenty extra bucks to me to save the possible hassle.

By the way, a set bought from Ebay is almost a 100 percent certainty to be a boot.

I’ve bought lots of other DVD’s from third party sellers here and have never had an issue. Normally I look for a good deal but AITF seems to be a special case.

Realize that AITF was shot on videotape, not on film. Videotape is shot at a fixed resolution and that’s it. You can’t get any better resolution than the original equipment recorded. The first 5 seasons were shot on a video system called Quadraplex (or quad for short). It was the first video recording system invented and introduced in 1956. The maximum resolution it can do is about 400 horizontal lines at best-less than DVD! Perhaps equal or better than S-VHS. Therefore don’t expect DVD quality especially from the earlier seasons. the later seasons were shot at a different location on batter equipment and are sharper.

My TV is a 27 inch old style CRT set. The episodes look quite good, better than the original 70’s broadcasts I remember on my parents 19 inch Magnavox tube TV. An old CRT set can give a better quality picture from lower resolution sources (like VHS or videotape) than a modern flat panel set. A modern flat panel set only looks best at it’s ‘native resolution’-which means Hi-Def 1080p sources. Lower resolutions show flaws.

Also in the early 1970’s, the biggest color TV was a 25 inch screen and most people had smaller sets. Even a 19 inch color TV was about $300-adjusted for inflation that’s about $1800 in today’s money.

So I am saying, get a legit DVD set, watch it on an appropriate sized screen and you will be satisfied. I’m giving the set 5 stars because it deserves it.

– fifty-seven

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers, Mike Evans
Directors: Paul Bogart, John Rich, Bob LaHendro, Wes Kenny, Norman Lear
Format: Multiple Formats, Box set, Color, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number of discs: 28
Rated: NR-Not Rated
Studio: Shout! Factory
DVD Release Date: October 30, 2012
Run Time: 6300 minutes
ASIN: B008HUSFTS