Mediabook What is a Digibook/ Mediabook/ Digipack thread?

[Sigill]

We often have a lot of confusion on the forum about what qualifies as a Digibook/ Mediabook and what is a a Digipack. This thread will hopefully help members distinguish the differences between these different editions. I will put a few basic examples of how we classify them on the forum, if you want to chime in feel free to post in this thread and voice your opinion!

Digibooks: A Digibook usually has a hard book like cover with a spine. Anything that contains pages bounded inside can be classed as a digibook. A lot of confusion lies with the Men In Black and Indiana Jones editions because they only have 3 or 4 pages with discs in them but I believe these should still be classed as Digibooks.


Variations:
This edition looks different but still has a book style packaging and contains bound pages so should be classed as a Digibook.


Mediabook:
Mediabooks are essentially the same as digibooks but are usually taller (DVD sized) and released in Austria, Germany and sometimes Spain.


Digipack:
A Digipack may have a book style packaging but does not contain any bound pages. It can be difficult to determine certain releases as some digipacks do come with pages/ booklets. As a general rule if the book isn't bound or attached to the cover then it is classed as a digipack.


Book like and bound editions:
This edition has a book style packaging but as the booklet isn't attached it should be classed as a Book edition and would go in the book and bound edition section.


This is how we currently classify these editions on the forum to try and keep some consistency. Feel free to chat and post any questions/ opinions!

 

[digitalbabe]

Hey guys-suggestions regarding adding sub forums and or how to categorize things are always welcomed. Digipacks and other variants of 'books' were not as popular when the Digibook forum was created, which is why it became a sub forum. However, we are happy to consider different ways to organize things. Lets please keep it civil and friendly. We'll look at this in the near future to determine what works best for this community. Thanks everyone for your feedback!


::: Staff/Community Manager :::

 

[Wreck]

I think its very important to understand the reasoning of different names to begin with. Different companies who make packaging cant have the same name due to patents on their packaging. Same reason why you got a SteelBook and a Metalpak or FuturePak. Its all just a metal case really .... Thankfully there is only a few diff metal cases so therefore we have a forum for each (they also have a bigger following)

with digibooks there are tons of diff manufacturers so thats why we just break the forums down into Digipacks and Digibooks.

I once had a very good informed write up on "What is a digibook" my explanation involves classifying the many diff packaging terms into the two categories but still acknowledging that while the product may be a mediabook we are still going to refer to it as a digibook. (this was also brought on by contacting the dealer whoo said eventually they would have g2 sized mediabooks)

Our biggest way of how we decided to determine all was "Does it have bound pages?" if it did we counted it as a digibook. If there was a booklet but not bound we didnt count as a digibook. This theory allowed us to classify editions for years ... unfortunately there have been some technical issues with blu-raydigibooks.com that im hoping to get resolved but previously when question arose I would point to that page for reference.

 

[dirtyoak]

I'd like to tell a little story.

First He created the digipak.
The people were happy and danced and rejoiced.
Then He created teh digibook.
The people were happpy and danced and rejoiced.
Then He created something that looked like the digibook but didn't have any pages in it.
This confused the people.
They didn't know exactly what this was and how to cathegorize it.
After much thought the powers that be decided that this book-like packaging that lacked the pages they loved so much had to be considered a digipak.
This angered Him and He created the Blu-Ray Fr4me.
The people lost faith in the almighty One.

Apart from some continuity issues I think the story is quite nice.

Let's say that IronPack's were still around and you (the HDN staff) had to place it in one of two cathegories, Steelbook or MetalPak.
Would you place it with the one that it most resembles (steelbook) or the one that is the least popular? To me it would make most sense to place it with steelbooks but I could see you placing it with the MetalPak's to shield the steelbook brand which clearly is HDN's biggest forum.

I must say that it baffles me that something that clearly looks like a book gets cathegorised in the digipak section.
To me it seems like you're trying to protect the digibook brand first and foremost.
Afaik HDN owns the two sites blu-raysteelbooks.com and blu-raydigibooks.com but they don't have blu-raydigipaks.com.

This is all just theories of course and no offence is intended.

How about making a thread with the first post stickied in the digipak forum too so that those that doesn't read the digibook forum gets this info too?

 

[Wreck]

well we have a forum that is a catch all in that area ....it says

Other Metal Packaging

Kinda doesnt work over here does it? Other Digipack Packaging? nope. Other Digibook/pack/any old name packaging?

Just not easy to deal with ...

Plus we cant have 100 subforums for these types of packaging. Since you seem to be a big Digipack supporter/fan please link me to the OFFICIAL digipack packaging website?

ps. we own over 50 domains, no bias here ... many undeveloped....

 

[dirtyoak]

well we have a forum that is a catch all in that area ....it says

Other Metal Packaging

Kinda doesnt work over here does it? Other Digipack Packaging? nope. Other Digibook/pack/any old name packaging?

Just not easy to deal with ...

Plus we cant have 100 subforums for these types of packaging. Since you seem to be a big Digipack supporter/fan please link me to the OFFICIAL digipack packaging website?

ps. we own over 50 domains, no bias here ... many undeveloped....

You misunderstood my question. Let's say that there only the Steelbook cathegory and the Metalpak cathegory and IronPack's are still legal and being produced.
Where would you place IronPack's? Along with steelbook's which I think we both agree that IP's look more like or with MetalPak's?

I'm not saying that HDN should have more cathegories other than digibook and digipak.
What I'm saying is that to me it seem's like you guys are trying to figure out what a digibook is and after that whatever is left you just lump into the digipak cathegory.
That's fine if it actually looks more like a digipak than a digibook but the releases we're discussing share a remarkable similarity to book's but you guys refuse to acknownledge that and cathegorise it accordingly.

I can't give you a link to the offical digipak site but here's what I read on wikipedia:

IMPAC Group, Inc. originally owned the Digipak trademark. That company was acquired by MeadWestvaco (MWV) in 2000 and folded into its AGI Media division. Following this acquisition, the Digipak name and designs were licensed to manufacturers around the world. MWV sold AGI Media to Atlas Holdings in 2010. In 2012, Atlas purchased Shorewood Packaging from International Paper and merged the two companies to create AGI-Shorewood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipack#History

Like I said I didn't intend any offence and now that I think about it, it makes sense that you would own several domains for alot of reasons.
I'm just frustrated after presenting my case for a while now and I feel like it's falling on deaf ears. I don't feel like my question's and thought on the topic has been answered and that I've been given a good reason for why these releases are digipak's.
When I ask what you see when you look at them no one has given me a straight answer. That's probably done as not to incriminate oneself so to speak.
It would make it harder to justify placing them in the digipak cathegory when one or more of the powers that be has said that they think they look like book's.

Just out of curiousity, do you own any domains with the word digipak or digipack in it? Or any other sites with the word digibook in it other than blu-raydigibooks.com?

Lastly I found it amusing that after googling the word digipak a link to the Oxford dictionary came up and when I search their site for the word digibook it wasn't listed.
The same thing happened on urbandictionary.com.
Just nonsense of course but I found it amusing.

 

[Wreck]

yup own a lot of digibook variations ... also ironpack , metalbox, slipcovers, and many more. I honestly dont know if we have a digipack one ... I dont think so but I could be wrong. Its a long list of domains that changes yearly ... some drop off some get added etc. etc.

in any case ....

You are right in that we need a catch all just as how we got a catch all for the other metal editions. If there are digipack fans (such as yourself) no need for us to clutter your forum as the catch all when digibooks and digipacks are the most popular.

Any ideas on what we should call this catch all forum? "Other Digis" idk doesnt sound right ... anyone got any ideas? Lets come up with something!

 

[digitalbabe]

How about something like 'Other Book & Bound Editions'...so anything not 'officially marketed as a 'Digibook' or 'Digipack' could be put in there, as long as the edition itself is in a 'book-like' package, or has some number of pages (not sets with books separately). Just a thought....

 

[Wreck]

That might be a good one ... lets hear what dirty thinks as well.

Cause stuff without a book or bound within reason would be digipacks so anything else could fall into that category.

 

[dirtyoak]

It wouldn't be my first choice to make another cathegory for "Other Book and Bound editions" but it's a much better option than having these coffee book's and studio vanal releases in either the digibook or digipak forum if both camps will dislike it.

The way I would classify them is if they have a bound spine and hard covers but no actual pages or just a loose booklet it should go into this new cathegory.
Just hard covers isn't enough because there are e few digipak's that use this.
If it has a bound spine but no hard covers it would still look like a book to me and I personally wouldn't call it a digipak. But I'm just one person.

When it comes to the actual name of that section I'm not sure what to call it. DB's suggestion could work. "Other book-like editions" maybe? Idk.

But I appreciate you all taking the time to listen to my rantings and actually making me feel heard.
But even if you hadn't listened to me and just placed these editions in the digipak section I'd still love HDN. It's a great place for collector's of so many different things.
I give you props for that.
Click to receive your props

Spoiler

 

[pmartin252]

How about "All other Digi formats" ?

 

[digitalbabe]

Hey Dirty-thanks for sharing your passion for these editions at hidefninja.com! We can all appreciate how many types of editions, and how close collectors have them to their hearts-it's what this community is all about-the love of movies and entertainment in all of its formats!

Martin-I don't know...is 'Digibook' something that Warner started, and maybe we can't use 'Digi' for editions that are not theirs? I have only a few of all of these (Digis, Mediabooks, etc), so I am definitely not the person to figure this one out-we'll need all of your help, haha! Thanks everyone for your continued feedback!

 

[dirtyoak]

I like the new sub section to the Digibook forum but was wondering if the digipak forum could at least come before the new one.

 

[pmartin252]

Hey Dirty-thanks for sharing your passion for these editions at hidefninja.com! We can all appreciate how many types of editions, and how close collectors have them to their hearts-it's what this community is all about-the love of movies and entertainment in all of its formats!

Martin-I don't know...is 'Digibook' something that Warner started, and maybe we can't use 'Digi' for editions that are not theirs? I have only a few of all of these (Digis, Mediabooks, etc), so I am definitely not the person to figure this one out-we'll need all of your help, haha! Thanks everyone for your continued feedback!

Sorry, only just saw your post DB, It seems that nobody has control of the term digibook, or if they have, they've decided not to pursue any claim for rights to the name.

 

[Sigill]

Updated the OP with our new guidelines.

 

[bigrob]

book like and bound editions

Reminds me of gatefold laserdisc packaging. Double disc sets would have packaging that would fold out

Just my 2c though

 

[digitalbabe]

Thanks all-let us know how it works out-there are enthusiasts for all of these different editions-hopefully this helps. If not, we'll revisit. Thanks!


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[dirtyoak]

Any reason why Other book/bound editions are listing before digipak's? There's not gonna be alot of activity in this new cathegory so it would make sense to list it last. Even alphabetically it makes sense.

 

[SaberTooth]

Considering how much i like the promotional art for movies, I cant believe how i have managed to not own a single Digibook!
Can u imagine if there had been a Digibook 4 Guardians of The Galaxy? with all that cool poster art that we were all posting before *drool*

Anyway, i'm here mainly cuz of the Days of The Future Past UK Digi release.... I have had it on pre-order since it was announced because it apparently uses the TOTALY AWESOME exclusive Empire Magazine art that they used for their series of magazine covers from the summer (25 in the set) . Unfortunately tho, some genius decided not to include the 3D disc! I was gonna cancel, but the thought of all that sweet exclusive Empire artwork, bound in a nice little book-like format is hard to resist.... really dunno what to do lol

 

[Jediah]

Are most of the German/Austrian releases G1 sized?

 

[pmartin252]

Are most of the German/Austrian releases G1 sized?

Yes, the vast majority are Mediabooks but there are exceptions - for example the recent "Invaders from Mars" is a Digibook. Hope that helps.