Has your "vision" of your DVD collection changed recently?
 

I took advantage of some of the recent "Buy 2 get X free", Costco and multi-season buy deals at the end of the year and my collection took a big jump in numbers. I was looking at it and started thinking "what am I doing?". In my mind, I have alot of movies that I enjoyed and liked, but I don't consider to be anything special.

I then decided to take on a new path with my collection. I want to go the way of complete seasons, special collections (like Ultimate Jordan or the disney sets), Disney movies, and movies that I consider to be my personal favorites. Other movies that are simply decent films, I will just sell.

It's a numbers game. We all try and beat the next guy in terms of quanitity, when in actually, I just really want a collection of DVDs that are worth owning (to me).

Alot of this came about when I found out there was a NetFlix warehouse about 10 mins. from me. I figure that's a 2 day turnaround time, tops. I could easily go from purchasing marginal movies to just borrowing them from NetFlix with plenty of cash to spare (it's actually ridiculous to think about what I'd save).

Has anyone else decided to take on a new direction with their collection?

I used to buy tons of movies each week, only to watch them once and then just have them sit on the shelf until I get around to selling them. Now, ever since I've started using Netflix I've been renting movies that I wanted to see, but didn't really want to buy and my collection has been the better for it. I still pick up my tv boxed sets, but my purchasing of single dvd's has slowed to a crawl. Now I only purchase what I feel is worth owning, or at least something that I'll watch more than once.

You can get into the same patterns with series. My advise is to really think about if you want to get before starting something with 7 years of whatever. I have a little bit of everything. The only thing constant is I repeat watch SciFi more than anything else.

That's exactly what I was hoping to hear PJ. Thanks!

Im glad I got in before the "size does matter" crowd shoots this thread down the toilet.

I think the OP makes a great point, about wanting to own what they considers his personal favorite and those that have something "special".

Ive been thinking about thinning the herd and now have reduced my library from 125 to 95, Im sure in a couple of months those that were "on the fence" of being sold will be, but for right now Im happy with the reduction and betterment of my selection.

The biggest change in "vision" for me was the realization that in ten (10) years would I really be watching some of this stuff that I own. And for those thirty (30) that ended up getting purged, the answer was no.

To the OP, good luck with the new "vision."

Re: Has your "vision" of your DVD collection changed recently?
 

No. I have always bought what I wanted to own. I really don't understand people who suddenly discover that they have been buying hordes of DVD's they don't actually want to own. Why were you buying them? It isn't a numbers game. We don't all try to beat the next guy in terms of quantity. You apparantly did that. Why?

i baught the first three simpsons collections, but then was like, I will never buy all the season, and more than likely HD-DVDs will be well out and accepted before they get half way through all the simpsons seasons so I sold my 3 season

I recently reorganized my collection by genre. I'd always wanted to, but I thought there'd be too many DVDs that could go into more than one category, and I'd go nuts trying to pick one. But I recently sorted my TV DVDs by genre, and decided to do the same with my films. To my surprise, it was a lot easier than I thought.

Anyway, after the dust settled, I realized a couple of genres were sorely lacking: action and musicals. So I've made an effort to expand those areas. Reorganizing by genre also confirmed that I have WAY more comedies than anything else. But in going through them, I found quite a few that I don't really want anymore, and decided to sell them. The end result of these changes is that my collection seems more balanced, and as a bonus, I've really enjoyed fine-tuning my DVD collection.

Rob

What is so hard with keeping up with one $30 box set a year?

As for HD-DVD, if it catches on, it will be backward compatible, meaning you can still watch the old DVDs on it

Re: Re: Has your "vision" of your DVD collection changed recently?
 

Well, you are very much in the minority (at least as the posters who have responded in this thread thus far suggest).

And it's just silly to say it isn't a numbers game. Why else do you think people posts links to Aficionado and Profiler? For fun? No sir, to brag.

I have a hard time believing that you cherish all 600 DVDs in your collection. I take you at your word that you do. But I'm sure you don't hide them in a closet. I bet they are prominently displayed, aren't they?

This is just what revelation I had. Sometimes I bought because they were cheap. Sometimes I bought on an impulse. Sometimes I just bought. But when they all stared me straight in the face, I realized that this wasn't what *I* wanted to do with my collection. You stated you didn't understand, and that's fine by me. You are happy with your 600 DVDs, and that's also fine with me. I will never beat you :)

I've also gotten a little smarter when it comes to DVD buying. Mine isn't huge or anything, but it's pretty big for my age. I've tried and only get the things I know I'll watch and the ones that I know I'd like to own.

For TV shows, I've held back a little bit. There have been some that have been released in the last few months that I was tempted to pick up, but I'd rather just own my favorite TV shows.

I'm getting to the point where my "Owned" list is bigger than my "Wish" list, so there's less and less older titles I'm temped to pick up. Which is easier on my wallet. I'll still keep collecting, but not as rapidly as I have been before. I still need to sell/trade off a few of these titles too btw.

Agreed--I'm cutting down a lot, there are a lot fewer 'musthaves' than there used to be.
Price, extras, time it will take to go through, etc., all factor in. Renting X2 and Bruce Almighty from Netflix, because we'll watch them then return them; bought LotR:TT because of the massive amount of extras [take a long time to watch] and I got a deal on the price. With the advent of seasons of TV shows that sell for anywhere from 10 bucks to 40 bucks for 3-40 hours of entertainment, it's a tougher decision spending 18-20 bucks on a 3 hour movie. Plus, with the exception of the LotR series, there haven't been that many movies out in the last few years I've really gotten into.
We have a Netflix about an hour away, and they ship stuff faster than I'd believe. I got a shipping notice on Monday midday, and the disk was in my mailbox yesterday. You're so close, it's too bad they don't do a dropoff service ; )

i've recently decided (due to my low bank account) to stop blind-buying so many dvds. it had really gotten outta hand and my collection had grown immensly this past year!

I've never really had the numbers problem. I've always wanted a quality collection, to my tastes - never a quantity one. I'm under 200 titles and I'm constantly auditing my collection to see what's really worthwhile.

To be honest, I think I hang on to a few titles simply because of my affection for them. I can't understand the people who own a large amount of dvds, over 500 or so. Not that there's anything wrong with it, it just seems like more than someone can keep up with. How do you guys do it?

I mean, I always hear about people with 1,000+ dvds and how they rewatch a title every week. It's just such an odd thing to invest your money into something you're not going to watch. I don't understand the collecting idea, whether it's dvds, comics, cards, etc. Ok, you have them all, why? It can't be investment, there are much better ways to invest. You probably don't like every single one. Is it just the wonderful sense of accomplishment? What's the kick of knowing you own all the Criterions, for example?

And as for the people who don't rent dvds at all...well, I just think that's silly. Then again, what do I know?

Very well said! I think that really describes what I was thinking when I saw this wall of DVDs.

Re: Re: Re: Has your "vision" of your DVD collection changed recently?
 

That may be why you put links to your collection in your signature, but it's not why I do. I don't care how many DVDs you have, and what your collection's worth, and I don't expect anyone to care how many DVDs I have and what it's worth either.

When I see a post or series of posts that I think is particuarly informative or clever, I look at the poster's collection because I'm interested in knowing what DVDs that person has decided to buy and keep. I expect that's why someone might decide to look at my collection as well. I'm often more facinated with small focused collections than I am with large collections that include lots of everything.

I have recently been cutting down on my DVD buying. I've bought about 270 DVD's in the past year, and when I look at my collection I just have no idea why I purchased some of them. Some I think I bought because I'm 19, and I remebered watching them when I was younger. Of course when I was younger the movies were great and I loved them, but now that I'm a little older the movie just wasn't so entertaining so I've watched it once and now it just sits in my DVD rack.

Some of the really horrid ones I bought because of promotions. Like Blue Crush, I bought it along with Bourne Identity just to get the 2 free DVD's that they were giving away at the time. (Nutty Professor & Skulls) I still have not sold any DVD's but this weekend I will probably go through and get rid of atleast 20 or so of them.

In the past 3 months or so I've really been trying to pick up on some of the classics that I've always loved and still love to this day. Columbia House has turned out to be a very cheap way of doing this, but I still find myself buying new releases that I know I'm only going to watch once or twice... but hey, that's the life of a DVD collector, you win some you lose some.

Last December I consciously started making an effort to cut down on my DVD buying for several reasons. One being that I was buying more than I could keep up watching. I've already been getting 5 free rentals per week due to the fact that a family member works for a video store. Those rentals are used up to watch all the 'new' movies coming out. Trying to watch those in addition to our own collection is difficult. I also felt that I was buying a lot of DVDs just because they were cheap.

A majority of the films I really want to see though are non-mainstream, independent, foreign movies that are not available at local video stores (e.g. Criterions). Inevitably they used to lead to blind buys.

Instead I decided to give Netflix another chance (I wasn't happy with their service when I was a member over 3 years ago). I would rent the movies 1st and if I really liked them I would buy them.

My 1st month back at Netflix ended last week. I was on the 5 out at-a-time. I saw 31 DVDs and made a huge dent on my want-to-see list (which used to be a want-to-buy list). As I paid only $19.95 (as it was a free upgrade for the 1st month to the 5 plan), that's something close to 70 cents a rental including tax!

Of the 31 DVDs, there's only about 3 or 4 that I would consider purchasing now. There are many of these 31 that if I had blind bought, I would have kept because they are 'good enough' to keep. So, you can guess how much money I am saving myself.

So, now I plan on buying only what I really like and not out of impulse or because it's cheap. I still have about 60 or so movies on my Netflix queue list and I'll probably be through them in 2 months and then I'll probably quit and then return to watching DVDs in my own collection.

At the same time, I'm auctioning off some TV box sets and thinking about eliminating a few others out of my collection.

Mines changed a bit as my tastes have been changing recently...I no longer buy every movie I saw in theaters that I enjoyed...only the ones that will get a lot of repeat viewings...and I have sold about 120 discs this year...

I'm in the same boat. Used to buy DVDs like they were going all OOP. But then NetFlix and even Blockbuster's Movie Freedom Pass came along... What are these new and astounding innovations!! I thought. Now I try to limit my purchases to "must-haves", like FOTR:EE, etc.

I've been noticing a tiresome trend in recent posts wherein people who've decided to purge chunks from their libraries want to be congratulated for their turn toward "quality" over "quantity" -- the implication being that those with larger collections are somehow incapable of refinement and are simply hording titles to pad their collections. This pose strikes me as not a little bit defensive, to be honest, and quite presumptuous, to boot.

Let's face it: the size of a person's library does not necessarily correlate to a person's tastes or discernment (after all, you can find plenty of tiny, pared-down collections that are every bit as crappy now as they were before they were whittled down into smaller, less fragrant droppings).

Still, I could care less what anyone else has in his/her personal film library. In my case, I've included the link to my collection for those who (for whatever their reasons) might find it useful to peruse. Like Yakuza Bengoshi (above), I routinely scan the collections of those posters who seem knowledgeable about film looking for titles that I may not otherwise come across.

That's why I'm here, afterall...

It has always been in my line of thinking to purchase only what I will see more the once. Of the few blind buys I have made, I have wound up selling them. But it is difficult sometimes not to succumb to temptation and buy movies you have seen in years but because a special edition came out or the price was took good to pass up, then your hooked.

Of the 350+ movies and box sets I own, I could probably afford to get rid of 5-10% and not even miss them. I've been collecting since '99 adding 75-100 each year. My wife thinks I crazy but she puts up with it since having a Home Theater is my only vice that I continually feed.

Space will eventually be an issue so I'm re-evaluating what I have and what I will get in the future (be much more discriminating). Maybe a DVD Addict Anonymous is needed to keep our prospective in reality.

I have 1500 DVD's and 600 laserdiscs. Is every disc I own a favorite of mine? No. Have I ever gotten rid of a disc I bought? No. If I bought the disc in the first place there was a reason I thought I would derive some enjoyment out of it to varying degrees. The fact that I or a visitor can pull out any movie I may feel the desire to watch at any time, justifies the purchase to me. As far as considering them an investment...LOL. My laserdiscs are worth 1/10 of what I paid for them now (the same will happen with the DVD's in a few years), but I never considered selling them even though I've probably replaced 40% of them with their DVD counterpart. They're just an archived movie medium and are being retained for posterity, sentimental value and artwork.

This couldn't be further from the truth (at least for me). I don't want congratulations, I wanted to hear from others who did the same, and why they did it. I was curious if others felt like I did, did a purge, and then regretted it afterwards. I'm happy to hear they did not.

I also think you are way, way off with the latter statement ("incapable of refinement"). People have different theories about their collections, and more power to them. If you are the person that wants to have 1000 in your collection, that's great! I think it's actually impressive that you have enough knowledge and interest in films to have the wherewithall and find that many movies that you want to own. I may not have even *seen* that movies in my (albeit short) lifetime.

To me, a collection should not be defined as a mere gathering of similar objects, but rather a reflection of your "vision" if you will of the medium and things of more than passing, but great, interest.

In closing, I'd have to respectfully say that it's very presumptuous on *your* part to state that this or similar postings are made with the intentions you stated. It certainly wasn't mine.

Re: Has your "vision" of your DVD collection changed recently?
 

I've never been into the number game as I'm not the collecting type. I've always just bought dvds of movies and concerts that I like enough to watch repeatedly. I've had a DVD player for over 5 years and only have around 110 DVDs, as I'm not that diehard of a film fan (limited money also goes to CDs and Video Games, as well as clubbing and what not) and there just aren't that many "must haves" each year for me.