joe_b

I've gone through my own failed experiment recently. I never had any intention of ditching the cases, but I have little alternative at this point. I simply underestimated how much room my collection was taking up in my tiny living space. The majority of it was boxed up in closets. I planned to convert a tiny guest bedroom into a media/tv room this summer. When I counted everything up and took measurements, I realized I would have to build wall to wall, floor to ceiling shelving on at least two walls just to hold all the DVDs (not even counting my blus or specialty cases). My house isn't the sturdiest to begin with and the walls are paper thin. Mounting shelving units that supported that much weight was asking for trouble. Pre-made shelving wouldn't suit my needs and would cost more than I was willing to spend. Something had to give.

I was wary of albums because of people who said the discs could warp, plus the hassle of keeping everything alphabetized. I know that's not a big deal to some, but it's important to me. I decided I would try paper sleeves and store the discs in a dresser. I converted each drawer into five rows using plywood dividers. Unfortunately, the weight of the discs was more than I had anticipated and I ended up putting everything back in the original cases after about a week... so there went $60 worth of materials down the tubes. By this point, I was fed up and decided it would be in my best interest to prune things down before making my next move. In the last two months, I've sold off/donated at least a third of my collection. By going to used records stores, I scored a bit more than if I'd dumped them at pawn shops -- but I still averaged less than $0.50 per disc. Taking the time to list them on eBay or Amazon just didn't seem worth the effort.

There were some titles I hadn't watched in 5-10 years (if at all) and I had to admit that most of this stuff would probably not get revisted anytime soon. My collecting habits were more about scoring a good bargain. It would take me years (hell, probably decades) to get through the entire collection from beginning to end. Not gonna lie: it gave me a lot of anxiety to part with so many titles. There are a good thirty or so discs I kind of regret selling off. Still, I'm glad I made an effort to get the collection down to a more manageable size. Now I'm looking into buying a couple hanging file DJ cases to store the remainder of my discs -- especially the bulky TV season sets of show I love, but rarely get around to watching. With those DJ cases, it should be easy to reorganize the DVDs alphabetically and not put any pressure on the discs like a binder might. Not as ideal as slim or jewel cases for preventing wear, but there is no way I am buying thousands of those for every disc in my collection. If these DJ cases don't do the trick or end up causing damage to the discs, I might consider giving up on collecting entirely.

UPDATE: Just tried out one of those hanging file DJ cases and I do not recommend them at all. The pouches that hold the discs cause noticeable scuffs, even when you take extreme care inserting and removing them. Even the paper sleeves I'd tried previously didn't cause visible wear like this. Glad I caught the problem right away before moving any more discs into this thing. Hopefully I can get a refund, as I'd hate to be out even more money on another failed attempt to save space. Looks like I'm back to square one... again.

seangi

I prefer the one from 3KAZE. You can fit about 25 DVD Titles in a folder.

jjcool

Thanks for a post that is actually useful.
Any other thoughts on the 3KAZE? I had never heard of it, but checked out their website and it looks like it may be a viable option. How are the slleves? Do they scratch the discs?

dvdshonna

I don't care for binders. Pulling DVDs out of a binder seems more tiresome than just leaving them in their original cases. Also keeping them in alphabetical order is a pain.

Paper sleeves cost 5¢ or less. And you can put 150+ discs in a CD/DVD box that sells for $5 or $6.

Jory

I recently cleared up a little bit of space by taking all the DVDs that I also own on Blu-ray and putting them in a big cabinet drawer in my bedroom. I could sell them, but (A) it doesn't seem worth the hassle for the few bucks I would get, (B) some of them have extras that aren't on the Blu-rays, and (C) I like having back-ups in case the Blu-ray fails.

When space starts to become an issue again, my plan is to take my less reputable titles and stuff them in that same drawer. I like having Citizen Kane, King Kong, Apocalypse Now, the Mad Max trilogy, the Alien Anthology, and my Criterion Collection Blu-rays on my shelf within easy reach, but I don't exactly need House of the Dead, The Scorpion King 3, Argento's Dracula 3D, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Screamers: The Hunting, Van Helsing, and Howard the Duck hogging up space.

The more I run out of room, the classier and more respectable my collection will start to look, and my taste in cinema will gradually look less embarrassing.

milo bloom

I've done some of my titles into binders, but I've come to regret the loss of artwork and packaging.

Now, I still need more space on my shelves but I'm hesitant to use more slim cases because they're so slim that the title looks bad when the font is too big. I seem to recall somebody mentioning cases that were slimmer than normal cases but not superslim. Can anyone point me towards those?

thanks

albert_m

It's funny that this would come up. I started doing just the other day - though a small amount. I ordered a binder and put duplicates (blu rays where I had the DVD and still want them... for a while at least) and other movies that I don't watch often and could care less about the case.

I'm likely going to expand a little broader, but my real issue is music cds, not dvds and that's more complicated for me, but I have to do it and realize that I have a fair amount that I'm ok with having the disc filed and a fair amount where the "collection" matters to me.

wakwak007

Like you all, I too have been putting my dvd/Blu/HD-DVD into binders. I however have been throwing many of the cases in the re-cycle bin but saving a few in case I damage any cases. I also have on display a few of my favorite movies/TV shows and have been adjusting my collection as I buy new ones. and albert m I also having being finding issues when applying this approach to my CD collection as well.