One thing that has annoyed me greatly about collecting Hitchcock on DVD over the years is that out of the 100s of DVDs I own, his films literally seem to be the only ones I've ever had a problem with the disc having a defect that renders it unable to play properly.

I was watching a cheap public domain compilation of his earlier work the other day when all of the sudden it started to freeze and skip which, being it's a $5 bargain bin set didn't surprise me too much but it reminded me that I still do not even own a copy of my favorite Hitch film Notorious, because the earlier editions that are out of print were kind of pricey the last time I checked, and when the 2008 Premiere collection box set from Fox came out I refused to buy it because of the large number of defective discs that were reported.

Also, I didn't even get a copy of North by Northwest until my Birthday in like 2008, by which time it had been re-released in an Amaray case. I figured surely by then the layer change error which affected early pressings and rendered the 2nd half of the film unplayable had surely been fixed, but sure enough it was a defective copy and it conveniently went out of print days after I got it.

I just find it strange that there seems to be such a widespread case of defective DVDs released years apart by different studios by one specific filmmaker. a highly celebrated and respected one no less.

BTW, I was thinking of getting Notorious on Blu, but I heard the transfer sucks. can anyone verify the quality?