Anybody else drastically reduce numbers of dvds purchased?
 

The other day I traded in about 150 movies at BBV. A couple of years ago I wouldn't let anyone borrow a movie let alone remove it from my collection. I remember early on when DVDs were $25-30 and you could get some great deals on the net. I made many blind purchases because it was such a great deal. Over the years I amassed over 500 titles. I occasionaly traded one in here or there. Lately, with the exception of the Star wars trilogy and some classics, I have not bought much. I fact, I am going to widdle my collection down to the essentials.


Just curious if anyone else has done the same? And for what reasons.

For a while I was buying one a week or so but now it's more like one every month. That's a 75% reduction:)

I've never had to sell any DVDs, but I did slow down a lot 2 or 3 years ago when most of the great online deals at places like reel.com, 800.com etc. died along with the sites.

I probably average a little over 1 a month now.

Yes, but that is more because for catalog stuff, I have pretty much have everything I want.

Also, I tend to buy DVDs in bunches now rather than preorder - like 8-10 at a time every 2-3 months or so (whenever there is good coupon or when I make a Costco outing).

Probably 75% of my purchases are now TV-on-DVD.

not yet. I'm sure that when I need something huge (new drum set) or something, I'll sell off all my criterions and rare shit to pay for it.

I havent bought near as many as i used to, but that is because I moved to a more expensive place and dont have as much money... DVDs dont taste good, and therefor food is more important, but I still buy about 1 month

I've never sold any, but I have cut way back. I average about 1 per month now and I used to be about 5 to 10 per month.

I've found that I just don't watch many of them over and over to justify the purchase. Also, I know someday soon I'll be doing this again with HD discs.

Yes, I've cut way down on the "just because there a good deal" purchases, but there are still way too many "I love this and want to own it purchases".

I'm cutting down, in part thanks to the Blockbuster trade in deal. My collection is small compared to lots of people here, but i'm trying to refine my collection to movies i truely enjoy and would watch again, versus collecting for the sake of collecting.

I was slowing down, the I got my self an all-region player that also plays PAL discs and now, every other week, my mailbox is full of awesome shit from Europe and Asia that you can't get here.

This is exactly what I'm doing. As a matter of fact I posted a thread in the DVD Exchange forum to get rid of the ones I probably won't be watching.

Yeah, after a few years I had established a library of DVDs. With most of the movies I wanted now owned, there just isn't that much to buy anymore. I still go to the shop every two weeks or so, but often come home empty handed.

I cut back on the amount of new DVDs I buy. I still have a wishlist at about 150 though :(

That's exactly why no matter what the price tag on the box says, I <i>cannot</i> afford a region-free player.

Up until a year ago, I had close to 250 DVDs... of course, about 230 of them I hardly ever watched, just bought them because they were cheap or I got a good deal on them somehow. Anyway, I recently sold about 200 of them, and now I only have about 50 of my favorites that I can honestly say that I'd ever watch again, over and over...

Ditto for me, I'm still ordering on a fairly regular basis (about 10 a month or so) but it's significantly different from 01-02 were I'm pretty sure my avg was a new DVD a day. Netflix has really helped too since now I rent a lot of things before blind buying them. Regarding pruning the collection every time I hit a "50" mark I pull about 10-20 titles and give them to the library.

I expect my purchases to slow down some this next yr, and each yr after that as I 'almost' have all the DVD's on my current list, and from then on it'll just be new releases.

I still buy pretty much everything I really want. I have slowed down from the early days of DVD when online sites were super cheap. I would pick up a lot of marginal titles just because they were dirt cheap.

I'm still spending about $75 - $100 a month on DVDs.

Hahahaha. I thought I slowed down from about $400-$500 per month to about $200-$300 per month now. Maybe I need to re-evaluate what "slowing down" means to me :D

Mark me down as another who has slowed down for a variety of reasons . . . finances being the main one for now. A slow down in "quality" or "have to own" titles is part of it as well.

I was looking forward to cleaning out some of my collection and getting a few newer items, but my local Blockbusters aren't participating in the $8 trade in deal (or any trade in deal for some reason).

The opposite has happened to me.

I did away with TV On DVD, that gives me so many more movies. For instance a season of Trek costs ~$82. I can fufill a CH account with the 3 for 25 deal, get 12 movies for ~$62 (when there's free shipping) and still have about $20 left over for a new release (like Ed Wood) that's not available at CH.

Because of my new buying habits I've bought 30 DVDs (2 of which were boxsets, so really 44 DVDs) in the last 2 weeks. If CH would have let me open a new account (I don't have any open at the moment) that number would have been even higher.

This may seem like a lot but my collection in the last year has gone from 150 DVDs mostly composed of crappy Hollywood movies to 120 DVDs consisting mostly of TV Shows and just recently after selling off over 25 seasons of TV Shows now I'm back up to 170 DVDs with only my favorite TV Shows remaining.

After I finish getting all of my favorites within the next couple months I'll be only buying new releases, which will be very nice to my bank account :)

I have slowed down significantly. Mainly due to the reasons that most of the films that I wanted on DVD have all been released. The majority of my purchases these days seem to be boxsets (TV and film).

I am down from 6 to 8 a month to about 3 or 4 a months.

Sept
1. Star Wars Box Set
2. Mean Girls
3. Monk

Oct
1. Star Trek Generations (Need Frontier and Insurrection to complete my Star Trek movie Collection)
2. Aladdin

Nov
1. Shrek
2. Spiderman (might rent until SuperBit comes out)
3. Smallville 3rd Season
4. RotK EE

maybe: Looney Tunes 2 (price and wife. I love the 1st set)

the opposite has defiantely happened. I went from buying DVDs in large gaps, to buying 13 in 2 weeks. also my managers at work giving me a ton more hours is part of it too, since I have more money to spend on movies.

I think it might slow down next year, once I finish up the stuff that is on my list. then as another poster mentioned, it will be mostly new releases for me.

I seem to be increasing .. I wasn't buying much (maybe 2-3 month) ..but in the 2? (maybe close to 3?) I think I blew like $1500 on dvds..(maybe $1200..) ..i need to stop :(

No.

I buy what I want when I want to buy it.

After 10 years I only have about 300 discs since I only buy movies I like to watch repeatedly.

Except for when I first bought my player and joined DVDTalk (1999), I never really bought a lot of DVDs really. In the early days, I bought a lot because there were a lot of deals ($8-10 new releases).

My DVD buying has been pretty slow since then, but its probably less frequent now. I've pruned my collection since day 1, selling/trading stuff I found myself not wanting to watch much anymore.

My buying has probably slowed even more recently because of both money and time. I don't find myself having much time to watch stuff anymore... Plus I get free "rentals" from work.

With that said, I just bought a ton of crap in the last 2 months. I spent about $400 last Saturday on DVDs, but only because I got them all for about 50% less than the lowest price I could find them online. I'll probably sell half of them so I'd essentially get the other half for free. And prior to that I've bought 5 DVDs that I got at a really good price (~$6/dvd). My only "regular" price purchase in the last 6 months or so was the Star Wars Trilogy.

DVD players came out in 1994?

I thought I'd be reducing the number bought this fall, but $5.20/DVD from CH has a way of increasing my unwatched backlog. I usually thin the collection as I go along. I expect about half of my recent CH order will be traded in after I watch them.

I go through lulls. There will be a couple of months where I might purchase 2-3 in the month, and then I'll decide I want to go crazy and will buy 20-25 a month for a few months. Right now, I'm on the upswing and am buying like crazy (damn you, Amazon!).

Of course, my wife also shares the DVD-bug, so sometimes even when I'm not going crazy buying them, SHE will be. So, it works out and the collection keeps growing.

I also find myself buying fewer movies on DVD. TV shows, on the other hand, are another story.

I think the reason I bought so many DVDs at first is because I was not only replacing crappy VHS, but also willing to check out new titles on the new format, especially when they had bonus features. But over the last year or so, I have found my buying habits going back to what they were before I got in to DVD. When I bought VHS, I bought only a handful of movies a year, and usually waited until I could get the tapes on a sale. I bought only movies I knew for sure I would want to watch several times over, and mediocre to OK movies I would either be satisfied in renting once in a while or not watching at all.

I think another reason I am not buying DVD movies as much is because I am usually aware of special editions and other pumped up editions that come later on. If the DVD is lacking in bonus features, and it's a big title (like Man on Fire), it doesn't matter how much I liked that movie, I am confident a better edition will come later on.

But TV shows, I know what shows I already like and want to buy, and also I know that the studio isn't going to double dip on a TV show, so I am more prone to buy those right away. I think all the DVDs I have on order for the month of October are TV shows on DVD.

I buy a dvd about once every few months now, whereas I used to buy like 5 a week. To me, there are just more important things to spend money on now. And I don't have as much as time as I did a few years ago to watch all these movies.

Yeah, I buy less. But mostly because I have what I want, and once you've gone through 1000 DVDs...

My compromise was to subscribe to Netflix. I can watch 12-15 DVDs a month for the price of one that I probably wouldn't watch more than once or twice. I still buy DVDs but not anywhere near as many of them.

Another vote for a drastic increase in TV on DVD purchases, copled with a drastic decrease of movie purchases.

A year ago, I think I had 7 or 8 TV show box sets. Now, its about a hundred.

I still buy movies, but not nearly as many as I used to. Now I mainly trade for new ones, and buy more Tv sets.

I think I'm buying more now actually. Good stuff just keeps on coming out! :)

Re: Anybody else drastically reduce numbers of dvds purchased?
 

For a minute there, I thought I authored this post. :p

The only difference from me is that I traded in about 100 and had over 900(!) DVDs in my collection. I felt the same way, that my collection was growning with no rhyme or reason. I never saw a DVD that I didn't like (ok... except non-anamorphic! :D) - I got many good deals and kept looking for more. I think the hunt for a good deal was funner than actually watching them!

I am in the beginning stages of knocking my down to the ones I enjoy repeated watching. The BBV trade-in deal allowed me to recover over 100% of my costs on the ones I traded in. With my $800+ gift card trade-in balance now, I will selectively choose from the new releases.

All thanks to the GREATEST BlockBuster deal ever! :thumbsup:

Yes and no. I never really purchased that many dvds since I only buy movies that I really want. But lately I have been trying to get my wishlist down. I have about 150 movies in there at the moment. If I find good sales on them I buy them. Once I get caught up (if ever) I will slow down.

Yes and no for me. I've amassed a good sized collection of current stuff I like while picking up catalog movie titles spanning several decades. At this point I'm doing the same but there are now far less older titles I need to pick up. Having said that I still probably pick up at least 5 movies a month....hard to resist the cheaper prices.

No, I pretty much buy what I want. If there is a slow down it is because CH changed the approval time for applications. I remember flipping 8-10 accounts in one month last summer; now I'm lucky to get 1-2 accounts approved in a month.