Giles

that is pretty silly.

exharrison

Alphabetical in sections:
TV
Movie collections and franchise sets
Individual movies
Animated Films
Documentaries
Concert
Anime sets
Anime individuals
Foreign

taa455

I have a few informal categories but I don't really stick to a rigid organization method.

TylerDurden_73

Alphabetical with numbers coming first.
How my collection is stored on dvdspot.

gutwrencher

Guests? I admire you for being one of the many who actually enjoy sharing.. Sure, I share in watching and sliding a little knowledge someones way....but my library is a personal library....not a public one. If someone needs to see something....I'll locate it for them. Not that they can't browse the collection....but no pulling and tugging and misplacing...no thanks. Funny....my friends already know this without being told. I mean, when I go to someones house and say they had a 2,700 title library like mine....I respect their library enough to not touch it. Unless, of course, they tell me to.

So....I'm the only person who needs to know where anything is. Simple.

Not weird at all. I prefer to store my titles by genre, then with SUB-genres within those genres. Then, maybe by director. So....it's very normal for me to have all my CasaNegra titles together. Why? They feature Mexican horror and belong together. Many of my Dark Sky and Blue Underground titles are also filed together since for the most part....they stay bedded within a certian genre. I can say the same for a few others, like Mondo Macabro and NoShame....although NS is divided into a few sections.

Since I don't care what someone else thinks and since I know what I'm talking about when it comes to films, dvds and the genres they belong to, I have total ease when adding a dvd to a genre section of my library. I know whats what and go by what the film means to ME. Remeber the rumpus caused in the horror challenge when someone decared that ET was a horror movie?....I guess some people know their stuff....and some don't.. It's simple to file by genre when you have a good idea what you are doing.

Classics, for me...have their own section with a sub-section for modern classics. You pick a year...and use that as a cut-off(for the most part). By modern....I mean those I feel will cruise into total classic status within say....30 years.

Sometimes....hold onto yer hat....but thats what collectors do. I seperate my Criterions though due to the wide range of genre they cover.

Sorry, caiman...I'm really not directing this at you...you just happen to be one of the few posts I read all the way through and I know many share your thoughts..

The bottom line is, you need to catalog your library the way thats right for you. There is no wrong way. It's all a personal taste thing. It also depends on how big the library is. If any of you were to come into my dvd/film vault....you would feel totally lost. Thats ok. You don't need to know where anything is....I do.

So, I file by genre, with subgenres withing those genres, and director....with a few variations. Perfect.. I tried alpha one time but it destroyed everything and it looked like crap.

And no....my link is still not up to date nor does it represent the way my library is actually filed. The link is just basically for others to browse.

joltman

I initially had tv shows and movies together, but I found myself looking through all the DVDs when I was in the mood for a quick TV episode, not knowing which show I wanted to watch. That's when I split TV into it's own.
Just wanted to point out that it's not just about finding exactly what you want, but browsing when you don't know what you want as well.

Jackson_Browne

I sort alphabetically by the director's last name and then chronologically within the director. I usually watch films because I like the director, so it is never a problem for me to remember who directed what films. I make a couple of exceptions for screenwriters (like I put all my John Hughes movies together, whether he directed them or not). Then I've got my half dozen TV sets on the end alphabetically by title.

Mike Adams

I also have to disagree with caiman's comments -- your DVD library is yours, and if anyone wants anything, you can find it for them using your own personal system. You wouldn't organize your sock drawer like a rack at a retail store, would you? Of course not, because the only one who needs to be able to find your black socks is you. I'm not saying he can't organize his library any way he chooses, but I wonder if he applies the same philosophy to his buying choices, picking up DVDs he may not have a personal interest in, but that would be very impressive to guests browsing his collection. I really hope that's not the case.

I have to say that once I get a few more binders, it's gonna be more difficult to find stuff, regardless of how familiar I am with my categories. I can just flip through a few binders until I find what I want now, but it won't always be that easy. Even now I have to remember whether a certain DVD had an insert, and therefore is in one type of binder rather than the other kind that just holds discs. It actually hasn't been hard at all so far, because I only have a few hundred DVDs and somewhat of a photographic memory. I am planning to set up a multimedia database so I can find things much easier in the future, though.

Trevor

What do you all do when something is not quite a movie and not quite a TV show?

Trevor

Mike, my sick ocd-addled brain loves reading how people organize things, and I enjoy all your posts.

However, I must confess that I find this particular behavior of yours quite strange. Different binders for movies with inserts and without? Is it so that you know for which movies you must create or find an insert? That might make sense, although I personally keep them all in the same binders and keep track of which ones need inserts.

And if you don't care about getting inserts, then why not just put the insert-less ones in the same binders? That would make it easier to find/catalog your collection.

Obviously, I'm not throwing stones, as I should likely be on medication for my ocd-like quirks.

Mike Adams

Wow, Jackson Browne's a member! Love your music, man!

Shagrath

If it was on TV in any kind of episodic nature with each segment being their own entity, then I put it in with the TV stuff. If it's a miniseries or documentary that was on TV, but was mended together to become a complete feature for dvd, then I stick it with the movies.

So Gun, Kingdom Hospital and the like go with TV, whereas stuff like Tommyknockers or The Stand go with the movie stuff.

flixtime

I have a lot of foreign films in my collection, with perhaps two-thirds of my collection being foreign-language titles. Broadly speaking I sort by language so I have sections such as:

English-language (and silent films)
Japan
China/Hong Kong
Korea
other East Asian languages
Indian - Hindi
Indian - regional languages
Shaw Brothers studio - I own about 120+ so they get their own section
French
Spanish
Italian
Russian
other European languages
Middle Eastern
Disney/Pixar/Family/Animated films
Television shows

I do have a variety of sub-sections within/or separated from the above, but the above is a nice general summation. I'm not overly concerned about anyone else being able to find anything because frankly speaking the average person wouldn't have a clue as to what a lot of the titles I own are all about anyway. Heck, with some foreign stuff that might not have English writing on the packaging, even I sometimes have a tough time recalling what it might be.

Johnny Zhivago

For me, generally, films stay in the movie room. Documentaries, concerts, music videos and TV shows go in another room on a rack that I keep in there.

Mike Adams

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this. So much stuff has been on TV that if I kept all the TV stuff in one area I might as well have an entire rack dedicated to it. What I do is if it's stuff like The Simpsons it goes with animation, all Monty Python stuff goes with comedy (even though I acknowledge that others do it differently), and stuff like Knight Rider and Street Hawk goes with Sci-Fi. Basically anything that would fit in some other category rather than just TV goes in that category, and just about the only stuff that really goes in "Television" is stuff like sitcoms, etc. I do keep Seinfeld in TV even though Jerry's stand-up stuff goes in Comedy : Stand-Up, and Mork & Mindy would go in TV while Robin Williams' stand-up stuff would go with the other stand-up DVDs as well.

Mike Adams

Yeah, I could especially see something like that if you've got a widescreen HDTV or projector in your HT room, and an older analog TV in another room that would be better suited for TV stuff, at least pre-HD anyway.

treszoks

all alphabetical:
movies
tv
music

Johnny Zhivago

Joo got it mon... I have a Sony Wega 4X3 in that other room and a HDTV in the movie room.

Mike Adams

Hmm... your "regular" TV beats my best one. Now when is that damn tax refund coming in??? Nah, actually I have other plans for it, unfortunately.

Trevor

But what if it was neither on TV or in the theaters?

Like a documentary produced just for DVD, a bonus disc, a magazine DVD, a DVD full of shorts that may or may not have been on tv and/or in the theaters, music videos, film festival dvds, sampler DVDs, advertisement dvds, etc etc

Not trying to be contrary, but I think I've ended up with 100 or more DVDs that were never in theaters (or direct to video movies), and aren't really tv related either.

That doesn't count my bonus disc collection of course, which is several hundred titles and kept separate.

Shagrath

Personally, if it doesn't fall into one of few catagories, then it gets thrown in with the rest of the "movies". All of my documentaries are in with the movies, including the stuff that originally aired on TV (Discovery stuff, etc.).

Chaza

TV Shows (alphabetical)
Movies (alphabetical)
Music Video and Concert (alphabetical)
Region 2 Music and TV Shows (alphabetical)
MST3K (in order of volume and single discs in order of episode number)

There are a couple of things that are hard to classify so it's hard to be completely consistent, but I try.

Sabrett

Haha...my TV Shows, Movie Boxed Sets and Gift Sets are all on shelves, and then I have a rack for all the regular amaray movies. Nothing is in alpha order, because it made my collection look weird with all the different sized boxes and such. Besides, I wanted to put movies together such as "Daredevil" and "Elektra" and couldn't if it was in alpha order. I like my set-up, though....and I can find every title, which is all that matters

GrimmSD

My movies aren't organized so much as grouped.

I have nine 3-foot shelves aranged in a 3x3 grid.
Sort of like this:
__________________
____________
__________________
____________
__________________
____________

The bottom shelves are kid-friendly movies, two of the the middle are PG-13 to R rated and two the top shelves are mature content (strong horror, strong R and NC-17)
The remaining middle shelf is TV series and the remaining tops shelf is movie sets.

David Levine

Everything is straight alphabetical - but after reading this, I kind of like the idea of separating TV from movies.

The only exception is at the bottom of my wall units (I kept running out of room, so I had stuff built-in) I put the DVDs that I designed and really like the packaging, but would never watch.