I've also gone through the 25 discs to see how the episodes could map onto each disc. For reference, the the 3-season Blu-ray Narcos Arrow Videos set was spread out over 9 discs, and contained approximately 25 hours of footage (1487 minutes) with no 'bonus' content, as far as I'm aware. This would amount to an approximate 2.8 hours of footage per disc. A dual Blu-ray disc, on average, can hold between 2-3 hours of 4K Ultra HD footage, and about 4-4.5 hours of 1080p HD footage, and so the number of discs for Narcos checks out.
This seems to be the most 'easily' comparable box set, since it is a modern TV series, that is also produced by Netflix. Older films can take up less storage space, so the comparison might be less apt, but take, for example, the Shawscope Volume 2 set (in 1080p HD), where 14 films are spread out over only 8 discs (again, around 23 hours of footage, not including any bonus content).
These are the disc sets of the previous Stranger Things Blu-ray releases - 2 discs for season 1, and 3 discs for season 2. I can't figure out the season 1 split, but I'm assuming that it's 4 episodes on each disc. For season 2, the original split is episodes 1-3 on disc 1, episodes 4-6 on disc 2, and episodes 7-9 on disc 3.
If you look at how many discs we have in the Arrow Video box set, it's quite different:
4 discs for season 1 (it seems)
So double the amount of discs for season 1 and 4 discs for season 2. I've tried to figure out how the episodes would split across the discs, assuming that each season is kept separate and that each disc contains only full episodes.
Keep in mind that both the 4K UHD box set, as well as the 1080p HD Blu-ray box set have 25 discs! I would've assumed that the 'standard' Blu-ray set would consist of a smaller number of discs, as it would require less storage, but they've still stuck the 25-disc set.
Even assuming that one disc can only house the minimum amount of 2 hours of footage, using a 25-disc split would still be quite inefficient, as 11 of the discs would still be well under 2 hours and around 4 discs would contain around half of their storage capacity. Only 10 of the discs would even come close to around the 2-hour mark. It's genuinely not an efficient use of resources, and so even if I'm completely wrong in my analysis, at least this part would still ring true (unless they stuff up all the discs with the same disingenuous interviews and 'cute' blooper reels).
I asked Gemini (sorry dudes!) to see what the most efficient split would be, and it comes down to 19 discs for all 5 seasons - this would've been perfect, as 19 discs + 1 bonus disc for extra footage would've given a clean 20-disc collection.
This split would've been the most efficient use of storage space, with almost every disc housing approx. 2-2.5 hours of footage, and allows for an additional bonus disc with the extra content, giving you a clean 20-disc set. Even if you were to split hypothetical disc 13 into two (so each housed 4x7 and 4x8 separately), you'd still only reach 20 discs...
For the amount of footage we have for the 5 seasons, 25 discs is completely excessive (even with additional bonus content), if the 5 seasons can comfortably fit into 19 discs (or 20 discs max). That's around 6 discs too many. I can't really figure out how this all adds up - the only way it makes sense if there is at least one bonus disc per season, but what would all that extra content be of? Just the documentaries we're already familiar with? Trailers that are a few mins long? BTS and blooper reels that are already freely available on YT? My faith in capitalism is low, but from what I've seen, Arrow Video box sets seem to provide a lot of extra value, specifically for cinephiles, in the form of informational content (such as video essays) and often contain additional footage, so I can't really imagine it being as simple as extra blooper reels (and I'm sorry, but who wants to pay that much to watch bloopers in 4K lol?)
Maybe I've gone off the deep end here and I could be completely wrong, but the maths is not mathing, and I am weirded out by the lack of detail on the Arrow Video website for their biggest box set, that is more than double the size of most of their other products.
