I wouldn't wait. Shout is sold out and from my understanding the steelbooks were limited. The longer you wait the more expensive it might become. I'd be hitting up ebay.

 

If I had Amazon Prime, I'd make sure to order from them next time, but I don't, so I rarely can reach the minimum for free shipping as there usually isn't a lot of stuff I want at once. I have Best Buy elite status because of my credit card, but that doesn't seem to be helping me lately in getting good conditioned items in the mail. If the regular version ever shows up in stores, I could see maybe buying it and swaping the slip covers, then returning it. Sometimes, those best buy stickers they put on them in store are tough to get off, though. The sales seem strong on the Amazon and Best Buy websites, so maybe there is a slight chance the regular version could show up in Best Buy stores eventually.

The Transformers: The Movie blu-ray reviews have been very mixed on Amazon as many buyers feel let down by the digital copy as they assumed it would be UV or itunes. If you don't visit a forum like this or blu-ray.com frequently, I could see how people could feel tricked and not have known this.

 

Same boat, if it never comes back in stock I'll pick up the standard release on black friday.

 

Back in stock!

https://www.amazon.com/The-Transfor...65953&creativeASIN=B01HHGAIHE&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

Thanks but that's amazon US. It's temporarily out of stock on amazon Canada where I placed my preorder.

 

I finally had a chance to watch some of my blu day copy today. In a word: fantastic!! I was very impressed with a number of scenes where the coloring and images were very sharp, much more so than on the regular DVD release. I'm not really a big fan of buying remastered versions of movies I love, but I found this version to be well worth it.

And for the record I got my steel book from Amazon.

 

Anybody want my code for the digital version? I have no need for it, just pm me.

 

^ Thanks again @tigatron2002 for the code. After watching it on my macbook, I'd say my madman copy is way better than this new re-release from shoutfactory

 

Damn I missed out! I've been begging for a code since before it was released.  

 

My only complaint is that at least on the widescreen version hotrod is still kinda pink, not as bad as the Sony version but overall it's a good copy from the few minutes I spent watching it

 

Slave IV when I get home I'll send you the code I have.

 

You da man! 

 

Top blokes, right here. Nice to see people doing cool things for others in the community for no reason.

 

Not sure what I think of it.

It does seem sharper (which out to be a good thing), but I'm seeing dirt and defects frequently that I've never noticed before. Worse than that, there are scenes where things flickered that before were a nice subtle shifting- now they seem to be seizure inducing.

I was hoping they might do a little restoration or finally fix those frames where everything flashes because they got the exposure wrong while doing double exposures for Blurr.

 

Maybe for the 40th Anniversary. Almost surely for the 50th.

 

Is this version better than the Madman version?

 

Generally speaking, yes.

 

Thanks again man! This is exactly what I needed since I have no bluray player.

I was pleasantly surprised to see I didn't need to download an app to view the movie from my phone, just followed the streaming link. Not sure about audio as I didn't have time to test but one drawback is I think airplay stuff is only in stereo...hopefully if I play from the stream on my computer, I can get the discrete surround channels. I only watched a bit to make sure it worked but so far it looks really good with crisp details compared to my old dvd.

 

I think the picture quality looks better on madman version but the rest is better on the 30th anniversary edition

 

It's really not though. The Madman version has better black levels, but the picture is better on the new version in literally every other way: better cleanup, better color correction, finer detail preservation, and absolutely no MPEG2 artifacts. If you adjust your player or display to compensate for the elevated black levels, then it's no contest.

Where the Madman version does better than the Shout! Factory version, in my opinion, is the extras. The Madman version has a lot more content in terms of trailers, toy commercials, the Scramble City special, etc. That's a tradeoff though, as all of that takes up space on the disc that could have been used to improve the level of picture detail.