animefan

I bought my first DVD before I even bought my player. I used to collect VHS, including anime. Before, Anime VHS costed over $30 for subtitled anime. When I saw that Record of Lodoss set costed only half as much and with both dub and sub, I started buying every anime DVDs and never stopped. So you could say I started collecting because of the bargain.

JestersTear

In September of 1999 I went from having a $6.50 an hour job to one that started at $12.25 an hour and would max out at $18 an hour in about a year and a half. My gift to myself for this was my first DVD player, a cheeseball DVD / DivX model from Circuit City, only ran me $99. The Matrix had just come out on DVD, so that was my first purchase.

After I lost my job (back injuries don't go well with factory work), I had to curb my buying habits, but I still grab the occasional new release that looks good, and I do a lot of shopping in the blowout bins. And of course, I haunt the DVD bargains forum here.... that's how I found out about great deals like South Park season 1 for $10, MST 3K vol 3 for $14.95, The Adventures of Indiana Jones for $25, and many more.

Another great place to buy on a limited budget is a flea market, if you have one in the area. I have to drive about 30 minutes to the one near me, but the last time I went I got Finding Nemo brand new for $12, and a used but perfect condition NYPD Blue season 1 for $20.

LasVegasMichael

I started in the Fall of 2001. I was an avid VHS owner and held out as long as I could in converting over, but the time had finally come after much convincing from my co-workers to change over.

I had avoided learning anything about DVDs, as I knew it would be a damper on my newly married wallet, as I knew that once I learned about them, I would want them.

Finally, went to Fry's and bought a Sony DVP-NS300 for $199.99 (at the time, a good deal on a player) and one DVD: Vegas Vacation.

I resolved to buy one DVD a week to build my collection. In the beginning I went slow, now I have about 20-30 on order at any given time.

I am up to 300+, and have replaced nearly every single VHS I had (with a few stragglers yet to hit DVD), and have two kids (twins) that take most of my time up.

Lots of kids on this board, I guess I never realized that. when I was a kid, I bought VHS, so its good to see that priorities don't change (although I had to save to buy a car first).

--LVM

CUBuffsMike41

I started buying them about a year ago. Didn't really care about movies during most of my collegiate life. But my friend brought me to a few good movies that were playing at the artsy Chicagoland theatres, and I enjoyed them. So I started doing a little research on my own about movies, found a few that I really enjoyed, found a few more, and now am really into it. I buy about one a week, and just have a basic DVD player and TV setup in my dorm room...so I'm still in the beginning stages. Eventually I hope to have a pretty expansive library and nice setup in my home.

Autotelik

Started out when I had a full-time job after graduating from college. My first DVDs were from CompUSA's $14.88 clearance and BestBuy's Bond Set #3 for $20. It definitely helps to have an income to support the habit. I racked up around 100 titles in under 6 months. But soon, I got back into school again, and my DVD buying habit pretty much fell flat. It would be nice when I have a job again.

asianxcore

When I got my DVD player if I remember right Junior year in High School (3-4 years ago) and bought Tommy Boy on DVD.

Rammsteinfan

Got my first two movies (Starship Troopers/Lost in Space) as a freebie when I got my first DVD player back in 1998 at Target stores. Since then, I have gone through over 400 movies or so.

woemcats

After I graduated high school I had about $3500 from working summers and graduation money, and I used a good chunk of it to build myself a computer with a DVD drive in it (this was 1999, players were still over $300 for the most part). I wanted a computer one also because at the time I only had a 13 inch TV (which, really, was all my tiny dorm room could handle anyway). The first DVDs I bought where Ghostbusters and the silver cover SE of Tomorrow Never Dies (bought at Suncoast, for full price, but I had a gift card), and shortly after Pleasantville and Austin Powers.

My first on-line purchases were Titanic and The Metrix, from 800.com with their 800 cents off deal. Over my freshman year, my collection exploded... I think I had 100 discs by May, many bought with Freeride gift certificates, Reel trivia, ect. At one time, I had lists of hotmail accounts all over my room I used to earn like 50 Reel trivia coupons. Feel kind of guilty about that now, but at the time it was fun.

I ordered my first DVD player sometime that year, a Toshiba SD1200, in a deal from a website that did group buys (don't remember the name), though I watched on my computer all that year because the TV I had was too old to have coax inputs. It was $126, which was half off, and I still have it, and it's the only player I really use. It's also the only player I've ever used that has a "counter/remain" onscreen display, which I love.

Over the summer I bought a 27" TV and sold many of my crappier impulse purchases. I resolved to never own more than 200 titles, and to pick and choose. Now I have 600. But I still have a lot in the bank because I've never spent more than I can afford, and DVD is pretty much my only hobby.

dcprules

I got into DVD back in the summer of 98. I got my first DVD player, a Toshibia, from Fred Meyer for $300 and they even game me a free copy of Titanic (widescreen) on VHS and a really loud Titanic whistle which I still have. My first DVD was Apollo 13, my second, after I watched Apollo 13 about a hundred times, was Sphere, then The Devil's Advocate. Then I start to lose track. Today I have about 400 discs. Really, I tried to get maybe one a week or so (not a really exspensive habbit at first). Soon enough, I started getting more and more and eventually I met and fell in love with a gal named Columbia House and one a week quickly turned into an enrollment package one week and a fulfillment the next. Soon enough, I passed the 400 mark. Quite a few discs for a college student (and I bet 50 of them I've never even watched yet), but I'll get around to it.

You gotta love collecting DVDs!

nemein

Started Christmas '98 when a friend gave me Seven Samurai, before I even got my first player. When I purchased my first player (a month or two later) I was able to cash in on about 10 freebies w/ it (some from the store, some from the manufacturer and some from Netflix as a promo, gotta love the old days ). My first in store purchases were a couple of old Jackie Chan films for full price at Suncoast (hey, we were all young and foolish one ). My first online purchase was Rush Hour and Ronin from DVDexpress. At first I thought I was only going to buy things I knew/liked/knew I would rewatch. Then mid-99/00 the deals were so good they were practically giving stuff away so I think I nearly averaged a new DVD a day in 00. Now w/ a collection of nearly 900 (probably been over a 1000 though if you include stuff I've gotten rid of) and probably about a 1000 DVDs watched as rentals (some overlap w/ those purchased though) things are finally slowing down as I have most of the existing ones I want so it's just a matter of waiting for new stuff. In the mean time I'm finally down to less than a dozen wrt how many I haven't seen at all, then it's time to start finishing off the special features

mikewendt

My collecting started when I wanted something better then VHS and Laser Discs were breaking my bank.

ReduxGuy

It was Christmas of 1999.

First, I got The Matrix on DVD.

Later that night, my dad surprised me with our DVD player and American Pie Unrated.

grrkittymeow

when i got my new computer and when i got a boyfriend... we went and still do go dvd shopping together... first movies were ichi the killer... empire records and amelie

Eplicon

Mine also started when I was getting a new computer, back in 1999. Although getting a DVD player was on my wish list ever since the format was introduced, it was more economical for me at the time to get a DVD-R player at the same time as the computer. It came with a free DVD voucher for Reel.com, which I used to get Born on the Fourth of July, one of my favorite films that I hadn't seen in a very long time. A couple of months later, I bought a Toshiba 3109, which I still use to this day.

While I was a big proponent of letterboxing before it gained widespread acceptance, I wasn't very much into collecting VHS because I was infuriated that I had to pay a few bucks more for the widescreen version of films that I wanted, and they were almost never on sale, unlike the P&S version. (Most times I'd just to go my friend's house and make copies off laserdisc. )

InnocentBlood

i started by buying my very first dvd over ebay in nov '00 - x-files season 1. a few weeks after that, i bought a pioneer dvd hifi set. i started hitting the forum boards and discovered buying used dvds was an excellent way of starting a collection.

currently a sizeable portion of my collection are used dvds that were well taken care of by their previous owners.

when i discovered this site, my love affair with CC & Anchor Bay dvds began & i started tracking down titles that really interested me. and then i discovered blue underground & am now getting interested in HVE titles also. i find that these companies tend to put out stuff that i could really get into.

i began my collection with an emphasis on horror and cult movies and since then i have learnt to appreciate foreign films as well.

SPiRAL

I bought the old edition of Boogie Nights the day it was released. I then bought my dvd player 3 days later. A $400 Toshiba model.

victant

It was Feb, '99 and my gf (now my fiancee) bought me a Toshiba portable DVD player with 2 movies, Saving Private Ryan and Meet Joe Black (one for me, one for her, I guess). It set her back almost a full grand.

Damn I love that woman.

DaveCole

When Fight Club was released on dvd I had to have it. Stopped in at Best Buy to get it and decided I had better buy a player so I could actually enjoy it.

I will always remember my first four dvds. Fight Club and that afternoon from viewaskew website I ordered autographed copies of Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy.

eedoon

October 1999. I'm still watching VCDs at that time. Got myself Image's The Silence of the Lambs, followed by a DVD-ROM several weeks later. One year later, I stopped watching VCD at all.

DemonDan

In 98 I bought a new pc before I left for college, which happened to have a dvd-rom.

First dvd I bought was Half-Baked, and was blown away by the picture, but didn't buy any more dvds until 99, when I got a toshiba dvd player for Christmas.

Then I got The Matrix, Blair Witch Project, and Austin Powers 2 as gifts.

Been buying since then when possible.

Maxflier

I started collecting right around the time Charlies Angels came out because that was my first DVD.I got the Superbit version for my #100 dvd.My collection is at 128 right now i think.

pagansoul

The end of 1997 and there were under 300 DVDs to choose from. I had a DVD-rom on my computer. For my birthday, Feb 2, I purchased a Sony DVD player and Sony 21 inch TV (I still have both). I have gotten everyone of my VHS movies except for The KEEP, WAVELENGHT, TOMCAT because they are not yet on DVD. I told myself I would stop at 500. I am now somewhere around 1,000. I now have a 42inch Plasma TV, Sony progressive scan 5 disc player with 5.1 ssound. My next TV will be 50inch HDTV. Don't look back, it will only make you crazy.

TCG

I believe it was '98. I had heard about DVDs, and how one could watch them on a PC. And i had a PC with a dvd-rom drive, so it was the novelty of it. i bought Con Air (embarrassingly enough) for $25(!!) bc i'd heard about the excellent video and audio qualities of DVD.

but i really got into buying DVDs in late '99, when I went to college. my first dvds included: die hard, the edge, predator, T2. it was like having a movie theater in my tiny dorm room. i just kept buying and buying...

(click link below to see continuation of story)

HistoryProf

I entered grad school in 1998, so i remained out of the loop until passing my comps in 2001....I had about 100 movies on vhs and new about dvds, but just didn't have any extra money for a player, which were still prohibitively expensive at the time (for me anyway...TAs don't make much). Rental places like Hollywood Video also had a very spare selection, so there didn't seem any real value in trying to convert at that point since I wouldn't be able to afford to rebuy anything anyway. But I spent the summer and fall of 2001 reminding my parents that I wanted a dvd player for xmas (my dad got one in 2000 and I was instantly sold when i saw it.) and then in November of 2001 I started buying a few titles so i'd have something when I got my first player. The very first one i got was Badlands off of Ebay, followed by Reservoir Dogs, Fargo, Silence of the Lambs, Go!, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a few others......little did I know how bad i'd get hooked once I actually had a decent income! within a year I had over 200

Things have settled down considerably, but I still own 310 or so titles.....

Dubya

Sept. 97, bought a dvd player at Best Buy for $500 and Batman, Inteview With The Vampire, The Road Warrior, Vacation, Unforgiven, and Risky Business. I am somewhere around 200 to 250 dvd's. With the recent purchase of Ed Wood, I basically have everything I had on VHS except the original Star Wars trilogy and some concerts. DVD came along at just the right time for me as I was considering diving into LD but happened to notice this new technology