I also sent Kooshmeister a copy, as he's the one who put together our original DVD Review at SWATKATS.info here, so he'll probably have more to say on this.
The item is shipped in a padded envelope from the merchant Collectors Heaven which has positive seller reviews on eBay.
The disc case case is ealed in packaging plastic, known as OPP (shrink wrap), similiar to most professionally made Blu-ray cases, though it's a heavier variety.
Comic book style artwork is used as on the sleeve. The print quality is decent, but if you look closely enough you can tell that it's not quite on the same level as a professionally printed sleeve - the artwork is too low resolution and the colors aren't quite right. You could argue this is due to artistic license I suppose. Don't get me wrong, I think it looks really good - it's a nice repurposing of existing official SWAT Kats art assets you can find online - and the effort is better than what the official DVD set has by far.
The back reads:
Which is then followed by a complete episode list.Deadly bacteria! Doomsday devices! Robotic spiders! Sound like a big budget sci-fi thriller? Nope. Even better. It's the 5-Disc, 26-Episode Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron Complete Series Collection. Chance Furlong and Jake Clawson appear to be ordinary junkyard auto mechanics until trouble occurs in Megakat City. In a flash they fly their high-tech Turbokat toward danger as T-Bone and Razor: the Swat Kats. The city is run by the power-hungry Commander Feral and his militant team of Megakat Enforcers. Jake and Chance were once Enforcers but Feral demoted them to workign in the scrap yard, where the Swat Kats were born. They take on any kind of menace from the undead sorcerer Pastmaster to lobster-like alien warlord Mutlor. The hardware-heavy action never stops in this animated fan-favorite from Hanna-Barbera Studios that's fun-flying fun!
The boilerplate looks like it ws copied verbatim from another Warner Archive Blu-ray release, though it does have the total runtime listed at 528 minutes which is correct-ish.
OPP removed - less reflection on the photos now.
Insite there's no additiona materials, just the Blu-ray disc itself. The entire series is contained on one disc.
The disc itself has been printed on - similar quality to the sleeve. As far as disc printing goes this was pretty good, I don't think it'll come off and it didn't interfer in my play tests on a Playstation 4.
Upon inserting the disc into a Blu-ray player, I was pleasant surprised to find a stylized menu - nothing too fancy, but it's a lot more effort than the official DVD release had:
Now, the big question that everyone including myself has: is the footage actually in high definition/was there any kind of processing for up-scaling to 1080p done? And, the answer to that, unfortunately, is no. Not surprising as there's a whole industry surrounding that, and it seems like only the most popular of animated programs made at standard definition get that kind of treatment (such as Batman: The Animated Series).
Instead, we get what appears to be rips of the DVD source video that was blown-up to 1080p size and dimensions - meaning that by default everything will appear stretched and out-of-proportion, with lots of pixelation visible on large HD televisions. If your Blu-ray player allows you, you can force a 4:3 picture by manually adjusting your settings.
Additional screenshots:
As mentioned earlier, this is sold by the merchant Collectors Heaven on eBay, user name "pasqualeeeeee" who's been selling there since 2007.
Here's some of the disc contents info:
And, I forgot to check when it was in my possession, but I'm pretty sure it's region-free.
Anyway, with Warner Archive seemingly no longer selling the official DVD release, fan options for physical media are growing limited once again. There's no special features, aside from the "SWAT Kats Special Report" episode that has been easily accessible for over a decade now (and was included in the DVD release) and the quality of the video/audio isn't improved from the DVD release. The packaging is neat (though I am curious if some fan artist did this and it's been used without their knowledge).
So, do I recommend getting it? I don't know. The price is comparable to the DVD release, but if you already have the DVD set, there's not really a benefit to getting this as any Blu-ray player should play DVDs. Maybe after Kooshmeister takes a look at it he can add his observations and say if he thinks it's worth getting.
