MovieGuy26

I am almost 18 years old and I started collecting DVDs Christmas time when I was 14. That's when I got my very first DVD player with my very first DVD movie, The Matrix. Since then I have been trying to collect more and more and buying more and more. I now have 197 DVDs. I feel this is impressive for my age, at least I think so. Recently I got a job and my DVD collection skyrocketed from barely 100 to almost 200.

I'm wondering how you all started? I know that many of you are grown men and have jobs and steady income and can afford DVDs almost every week. I sadly, cannot. I have to pick and choose, based on how much money I have and what movies I like more. So all I'm asking is to tell your DVD story and how you started collecting. And what's your secret to buying DVDs? All the time or what? Someday, after college, I hope to be one of those guys that heads to Best Buy or Circuit City and buys what DVDs he wants, whenever he wants.

MG26

(ps. how do you put links in your sig. my sig sucks...)

Hokeyboy

Collect when you can afford, and of what you can afford collect only what you like, take your remaining money and plop it right in an IRA. Or send it to:

Emo Pooplehausen
c/o The Ernest W. Thodwacker Home for the Recently Smarmy
457 Fun Lane #409
Happytown, CA 90909

Seriously? My collection started with a few favorite titles. My first was Boogie Nights (the old edition), followed by LA Confidential and Contact. I jumped into DVD back in the day when Reel.Com, Buy.Com, DVDExpress and other retails were offering 40% off retail and $10 to $20 coupons with no minimums.

Anyone else remember 800.com's 3 DVDs for $1 promotion? Ended up making out like a bandit with 2001, Terminator 2, and Crimson Tide. All shipped for a buck. Glorious times, those salad days of 1998...

Indeed, it was the golden era of online DVD geeks. Everyone was getting new releases for like $5 a pop, no shipping. Then reality sank in, and we all had to set Betty on fire.

DJ! Drop it like it's hot!!!

QuiGonJosh

With a DVD player!

5 years ago...first disc was Matrix, Tomorrow Never Dies, and Saving Private Ryan...

ckolchak

you might look back years from now, and realize that this is the time when you actully most enjoyed and appreciated your collection.

i've gone thru the phase where i would show up at BB every tuesday morning and pick up something, whether it was a new release or a catalog title, but lately and i hope from now on, i will be more selective.
there is a TON of titles coming out now, i would like to at some point pick up, but i just dont have the time to watch them anymore, and i have a ton sitting on the shelf still waiting for a first viewing.

in some ways, i envy you as your purchasing reflects a lot of thought and desire and the restrictions you have mean that what you eventually pick up is more highly prized than a lot of what i have sitting on the shelf.

Cyberock

I don't remember what my first dvd was but I got started back in the day too when reel.com, 800.com, and buy.com use to do all those crazy deals. DVDs were almost free. There was this other site too, think it was like ValueAmerica or something like that that gave you a $150 credit just for signing up. Almost feel guilty for taking advantage of that system back then since most of those sites are no longer around. I also remember buying my first dvd player back then which was $500. The price we pay to get into this game, now players can be purchased for next to nothing. Today I have 710 dvds and it grows every Tuesday.

Hokeyboy

Oh, and my first player was in April 1998. Bought a Toshiba 2107 for $225 at Walmart.com, and that was considered a major bargain at the time.

And you know what? Six years later it's the only player that's lasted. Second generation machine, so they were built to last... Ah, the good old days...

Bacon

easy, copy and past your link after clicking the http:// box in a reply,be sure to name the link ie DVDs, then copy/paste that, in the sig (under profile)

Hokeyboy

Now who could argue with that?

DavidH

Yep. That was great.

etrnlevol

I love my Toshiba dvd player. It's been my main player for about 4 years now. For something that old and not as high tech it does a great job. Plays everything I throw at it with no problems. I fear the day when it may die.

As to the topic of this post, I started out in late 98. I can't remember what my first dvd was though. I still only have around 120 but that is more financial. Paying college bills, cost of living, and etc. isn't cheap. At any given time the only spare cash I have to use on dvds is about $100/month. Not a lot, but it forces me to be more picky about what I get. That, and I always look for sales on what I'm getting and/or wait until it drops in price.

I realized my dvd collection has cost me the equivalent of 6 months of my college education. 5 years compared to 6 months, yikes. Now I know where the bulk of my money goes

SRGilbert

For me, two things made me decide to get into the DVD game. First was when I heard that the Back to the Future set was coming out in widescreen dvd. After that, I paid a visit to my favorite rental store (a great local store, not a chain) with a notepad. Previously, I had always ignored the DVD section and was very surprised to find that they had over 100 movies on DVD that I wanted to see!

After a renting quite a few and buying a dozen or so, I realized that the 27" tube and Dolby ProLogic system wasn't cutting it, so I got myself a whole new system including a 42" Panasonic plasma, and a 6.1 surround system.

Now I have around 115 titles, more than half of which came from Columbia House.

The Infidel

I actually purchased my first DVD before I had even bought my first player. I bought Caligula (unrated version) online, then bought the player (a $170 RCA model from Wal-Mart), then bought several more DVD's as I could afford them from Columbia House. The difference is, I actually WORKED for CH at the time, so I had access to the company store, where perfectly good, gently-used (somtimes brand new) discs were available for $6.00 each.

I now own over 250 movies, purchased at several places over the past few years, and upgraded from the $170 RCA player to a $1000 Denon model...of course with a widescreen HDTV to view them, and a 5.1 surround system to listen. I'm sure over time I'll upgrade to plasma and 6.1.

Joseph B

I purchased my first player, a Toshiba, in November 1998.

My first DVD's (which I purchased the same day) were:
Terminator 2 (This was the original, "bare bones" release)
Batman
Forbidden Planet
Star Trek: First Contact
and
Gone with the Wind

I've purchased at least two DVD's every week since then!

*RG3*

How did I start my DVD collection??

It's an interesting story. In my senior year of high school I received about $500 worth of scholarship money towards graduation. My parent's didn't make a big deal what I did with it and felt I deserved it so I took the money and invested into a DVD player and bought Contact as my first DVD. From then on in, my collection has been growing.

Adrenaline

After seeing The Matrix on VHS I decided to get a DVD-ROM drive for my computer, this was back in December 1999.

Bought the following DVDs to start my collection off:

The Matrix (WS)
Star Trek The Next Generation (WS) Movie Collection (GEN, FC, INS)
The X-Files: Fight The Future (WS)

My moto at the time (and until 2002) was to only buy movies that were at the very top of my favorite list.

Then I started buying X-Files seasons and my collection started rising! I bought ~150 DVDs last year (not including a lot of TV seasons), filled an entire 6" tall bookcase.

After realizing that I'd probably never watch most of the movies again I went through sold about 70 of them (still have about 10-15 to go). My collection stands at around 100 now but it is made up of my all-time favorites that I'll watch over and over again.

lcnickell

i started buying dvd's before i even had a dvd player--back in early 1998- dvd's had barely been out too long- but Montgomery Ward started phasing out what they had at the time- so when most places charges $19.99-$34.99 a disc.. they clearanced all theirs out for $9.99- so i started buying ones i knew i'd get when i eventually bought a player - titles like Boogie Nights, Scarface, fargo, pulp Fiction,the first platoon disc( which i later sold on ebay for over $100) and so on..

i got my first player a few months later-- an open box Sony at montgomery ward that was around $200 ( a steal at the time)

after that, my collection grew slowly- and there's a few i missed out on getting that went out of print- but i grabbed so many of my faves ( the killer criterion, Swamp Thing, hard boiled cc) that it more than made up for it..

i only buy movies i like, and rarely a blind buy--

i'm at 327 and growing, after almost 6 years

whoops, 328, got Ed wood today...

FuzzyBallz

By getting a DVD-ROM for my PII 266 system and my 1st DVD was... She's All That. Yes yes, I know it's a chick flick, but Rachel Leigh Cook was totally hot. Besides, I got it free.

Then the next week I bought a $500 Sony set top DVD, and a bunch of DVDs. Don't remember which ones though.

TomOpus

How did I start my collection? I got started buying DVDs back in '99. I was dragging my feet a bit because I loved my laserdiscs and didn't want to admit there was a format that improved the picture/sound. The more I read how great DVDs were, I knew I had to switch teams.

At the time, I was involved with a woman w/3 kids so I didn't have the $$ to go hog-wild when I decided to jump into DVD. Once that relationship ended, I had money to buy like mad. I have a decent little collection now, so I can be more selective.

My secret to buying DVDs? I buy locally at release date when they're on sale. Older releases I'll either use DDD, CH or I have a couple nice used places where I've made some nice finds.

It's too bad I didn't discover this forum until July '02. I would've found better deals and a lot more information to guide my buying. At least I'm making up for lost time

Ostello

well I've been collecting Bollywood dvds for the past couple of years...

Then Christmas 2003 I joined this forum and got hooked onto American/English dvds.

I'm mostly going for the box-sets as of now...

The first dvd I bought in December 2003 was

The Pink Panther Box-Set (Limited Addition) - The pink cover one..

Followed by

The Godfather - Box-set
The Indiana Jones Box-set (This was presented to me as a Christmas gift)
The Die Hard Box-set
The Fifth Element - double disc
Murder By Death
Back To The Future - Box-set
Superman - Box-set
The Mummy Returns

MovieGuy26

thanks, what you said up there made me appreciate my collection even more. even though i have had my share of "bomb" blind buys (cough....art of war....cough) i still really like my collection thus far. and thanks to everyone for sharing. it's pretty cool finding these boards. i look forward to becoming more familiar around here and a younger audience.

MG26

rdodolak

Too true ... those were the days where it was most enjoyable.

Picked up my first dvd player, a first generation that's still works like new, back in Sept 1997 along with Species and Turbulence when only a handful of DVDs were around. Reel.com was the first place I notice that carried dvds online, about a year and a half before the birth of DVDTalk.com and then it all changed.

gutwrencher

I bought Robocop(criterion) almost a month before I even had a player! after that, it was 10 dvds a week every week for a very long time. the result is found in my link below. at first I had the day off today....but then booked a 15 hour jobfor about $1,000!! looks like I'll be buying a few tomorrow before the pigskin rampage.

Avid

Some of my friends were into DVD from the get go, and I kept meaning to looking into it but was too busy. One night I did a google search for "Out of Sight" and read the review at the Digital Bits, and then a ton of their other reviews. I became really excited about DVD and made a list of my favorite movies that I wanted to own. That week I bought a player and TV (yes, I was one of three people in the USA that didn't have a TV by choice, I always go to the theater to see something).

For me DVD is the first format to present movies in high enough quality to start a collection. I think my first order was for: Taxi Driver, The Matrix, Election, Ghostbusters, The Sixth Sense, The Limey & Chasing Amy.

I've kept my collection small, I now have 65. Sometimes I think about building a large film library and that would be fun too.

MikeyGaGa0713

Got a DVD PLAYER When i was 12-13 wasn really big on collecting my first titles i think were like:scream,goodfellas,taxi driver,army of darkness,A Bronx Tale Matrix,Phantasm.I know those were definately a couple of my first, wasnt to big on collecting, i stopped and actually lost my dvd player! I really cant remember(my brother probally took i someplace or hid it I have no idea), now am 15 and as of this past summer I really got into collecting went from about 55 DVDS to 185

Tony Dvdfan

Sometime around early 1998...i bought a used display model RCA dvd player for around $400 at CC...probably still works, though i am always upgrading for some reason or another. Because of CC's torrid selection bad then (about 10 titles), i headed to Best Buy (they had a whole aisle, in the camcorder section back then!), my first title was the original release of Scarface. I grabbed a couple others, spent about $100 for three dvds. I must have missed all those internet deals back then. Got over 700 dvds now, though i prefer not to count anymore!