I've been a collector for, what, 4 years now? And one thing has struck me. I have almost halved my DVD buying.

Gone are the days, when, on a whim and a prayer, I would scan online retailers looking for something even remotely interesting to flitter my hard earned cash on. Gone are the days when I would say to myself after seeing yet another turd 'well, it was ok, i'll probably get it on DVD.' Is anyone else experiencing this?

I am especially getting this on my film buying. Right now I have on order, for film:

Kill Bill V1
Open Range
Alien Quadrilogy
Cabin Fever (Which i'll end up cancelling)
and
Airport Terminal Pack (love those disaster movies)

compare that to my music DVD/TV Show DVD orders:

Foo Fighters - Everywhere But Home
Pearl Jam - Live At The Garden
No Doubt - Rock Steady Live
Dawson's Creek S2
MASH S5
Sex and the City S5
Frasier S2
Friends S6

I don't get it. Am I getting DVD Film fatigue? I am SO picky these days. Or have I just learnt my lesson when I have been burned so many times before?

Is anyone else going through a similar thing?

I think I preorder far less than I used to but I do way more impulse buying.

I often need something new after a long weekend so I'll go buy a new TV show I've never seen. So right there, being the completest I am, I'm gonna end up buying the whole show.

I think I do end up with less crappy blind buys than I used to and that's a good thing. Earlier this month I had a real bad run with some awful movies but that hasn't happened in 2 years or so.

I would say I am buying less dvd's right now, but it's purely a financial decision. If I could, I'd be buying dvd's left and right. My wish list on Amazon is somewhere in the vicinity of 300.

Like you, I've been burned many times before when purchasing dvd's, and I fully expect to be burned again. It's just part of like, I guess--you get used to it. There is always a market for used dvd's, so if I pick up a dvd and I can't stand the movie I will simply trade it in. There doesn't seem to be any lack of quality new releases nowadays, so if I could I'd be picking all of them up. As it is, I pick up what I want most and have people get me the rest for Christmas.

For sure, I wasted too much money buying stuff blind and not liking it and selling it off. It's not THAT much more expensive than renting, but it adds up.

That and the fact that I don't nearly have enough time to watch what i own.

I only buy what I like to watch repeatedly.

I have been collecting since the original Warner titles and Blade Runner.

I doubt I have 125 DVD's at this point.

For me personally, there are very few films I would like to watch more than once. I have Direct TV for that.

I am definitely buying less movies, but I am definitely buying more tv show set so it is all a wash.

All of the above.

Not enough money to buy everything I want; I've got a great majority of the 'films' that are out on dvd that I really want; I know this is an unfair comparison, but when I can buy a TV series that has between 12 and 40 episodes, for 10-40 bucks, paying 20 bucks for a ~2 hour movie isn't quite as attractive anymore.
In fact, the next couple things I'm thinking about getting are music-on-dvd [Weird Al and the Dead Milkmen.]
Also I don't normally have 2-3 hours to block out to watch a movie, tv/shorts are much more accessible to me. And I hate stopping a movie halfway through [no, I don't know what I'm going to do with TTT].
Filmwise, we got Finding Nemo recently, and LotR: TTT: EE: DVD: is on preorder; and we're probably going to get Pirates of the Caribbean. Other than that, I'm renting a lot of stuff through Netflix. 3 of the 4 next Disney Treasures are preordered, but A> they've been delayed and B> those are similar to 'tv on dvd'.
I also have a lot of stuff that hasn't been watched.
I've not been burned so much, there's only a couple of things i still have where I've watched them and thought 'Man, why did I buy that.' Most of those I've sold/traded, and either broken even or made/lost a little. [You want to see something frightening, there's a report plugin for DVDprofiler that compares 'price paid' to 'MSRP' to see how much of a 'discount' you got overall.]
Also, we got a DVR a while back, and I'll catch a lot of movies on late-night AMC/IFC etc and watch them there, which usually stops me from buying the dvd.
And at least with dvd's, there is a good resale/trade market, so if you 'lose,' you usually lose only a few bucks. It does add up, but it usually doesn't have to cost any more than a rental in the end.

I've started to limit my blind buys but besides that I'm stll buying the same amount.

I certainly am buying fewer* dvds these days. I've got a bit of a backlog to watch, and I asked for several from my family for Christmas. When I was really in the buying frenzy, I almost felt the world would end if I didn't hit Best Buy before lunch every Thursday.



*If you can count it, like dvds, it's "fewer". If it's a lesser part of a larger quantity, like cheese dip, it's less.

I didn't want to say it, but that's one of my pet peeves.
Express Lane--12 Items or Less. NOOO! This beach has less sand. This beach has fewer grains of sand.

But in his defense, for many people, their DVD collection is uncountable
I'm like that too, and part of it I'm sure is the consumerism that is instilled in all of us to some extent. Sometimes I just want to 'buy something,' and at least DVD's do have some resale value.

I think I said this 20 DVDs ago, but 20 DVDs more and I'll be set till HD-DVD comes out.

Yes, I buy less. For the following reasons:

1. Instead of buying things as they come out, I'm more inclined to wait for price reductions. Ringu is a good example of this.

2. The studio tendency to double-dip. Again, I'll wait for either a price reduction or a newer, better release.

3. I have less interest in "new" movies than I do favorites. So I'll generally pass on things "Daredevil" and POTC in favor of stuff like "Day of the Dead." Again, I'll wait for price drops on current movies. Also, the major studios have slowed down the process of dipping into their catalogs, so this is a factor as well.

4. I'm currently buying up all of the Buffy and Angel sets as they are released, so these take priority over movies.

5. Also buying more hardcore pornography. I could spend twenty bucks on Daredevil and watch Ben Affleck for two hours, or I could spend the same twenty bucks and get Adriana Sage, Belladonna, Aurora Snow, or Gauge. No contest there...

Not to be picking on Daredevil, it's just the big studio release I focused on for some reason.

Nice question to pose on the forum!

I have definitely slowed my buying. I'm a big Criterion collector and I have decided to end the lame ass crusade of collecting all the spine numbers along with any DVD that seems ok.

The birth of my daughter has really nailed my spending priorities into place. I still collect and purchase almost weekly, but far less than I used to.

Have kids done that to anyone else?

*raises hand*

That's another very good reason why I have slowed my dvd purchasing. My daughter is 18 months old, and God knows she needs all of her clothes, toys, and food far more than I need any dvd.

I've got most of my "favourites" by now, so I buy less these days, usually blind-buying Columbia House purchases.

i am buying way less. there was a period where i was averaging 2 each week. now its more like 2 a month...if that. tight on money (the only problem with being a teacher/coach) and putting my wife through her masters program has decreased all my fun money.

My buying has pretty much stayed at the same rate.

Course I only started collecting about a year ago and my tastes generally only provide for 1 or 2 DVDs at most per week.

Lately, it seems I've been buying way MORE but watching DVDs way less.

At the moment I buy the same amount of DVDs as before, but I spend the money on, in my opinion, quality stuff. So no more of those crappy action comedies I only watched once.

I definately have been buying less the last few months. I have only been buying DVD's for almost two years, and currently have a little less than 100. A decent % of those being children's titles.

When I first started off with DVD's it was very easy to walk into Best Buy and find a few titles that I wanted. Now that I have something of a collection it is harder to find something that I want to purchase. I think at this point I am almost exclusively buying new releases. Now that does include a release of an older movie, like the Indy box set. But I just find that of the movies that are available, at this point I just have most of what I would want.

When I first got into it I would look at the shelf, and say to myself, I don't want to watch any of these because I just watched it last week. So I would go to the store and buy/rent something new. Now I look at the shelf and very often find something that I want to watch. Plus I rent a lot, so that cuts down on a lot of my purchases.

As far as kids go, I find that getting kids titles and watching them with the kids is just as much fun as watching something that isn't for kids. I had just as much fun watching Finding Nemo when it came out on DVD as I will tommorow when I pick up the extended version of The Two Towers. It is always easier to justify a DVD purchase to the wife if it is a kids movie. I think kids in general change your spending habits, and not just on things like DVDs.

I'm buying more

I had a few years of decline in buying since the reel.com days... but now the prices at your local B&M are so cheap.... plus Columbia house was so good to me last summer. I also find myself waiting for my "B" list titles at Hollywood Video (2 for $20).

Imports are also getting so much better and cheaper. I remember paying $60 for an anamorphic R2 Japan Pulp Fiction waaaay back.. and it was only available at a couple of places online. Now there seems to be a ton of good *CHEAP* import etailers and I'm buying a lot more of these.

--mike

My rate over the last few months has picked up but only because some long awaited (for me) DVDs have been released or rereleased. After January there is nothing on the horizon that I really want until Gigli .

I should also say, that in reality, give or take a few, most of the catalogue releases I wanted I now have, despite my belief that they never would come out (Leap Of Faith, IQ)

Also, one thing I didn't put in my original post is that I have just had a massive clear-out, and my collection is now shed of 50 or so DVDs which I should have never EVER had anyway

I already posted this in a somewhat related thread, but I think it is an interesting observation, so I'll say it again.

I think that there is a certain number if DVD's that each person will hit at which their buying frequency will plateau. For me, it was just recently after an insane spending spree (I had ~20 titles . . . spread between three seperate orders . . . arrive on one day last week . . . and some of them were boxed sets). That last push got me to the point where I have pretty much all of the currently available DVD's that I want. In the future, I anticipate only adding on new releases or long awaited old releases/upgrades (e.g., Rain Man, Top Gun, and Titanic this coming year). The point is, my collection has, effectively, caught up to where I wanted it to be.

Oh . . . and I take my blind buys fairly seriously, so I can't recall ever being burnt on those.

I'm buying less domestic releases and more international ones.