Keeping track of what extras you've seen
 

Aside from the "if I don't remember it, it's all new to me" theory, does anyone have any organized/creative ways of keeping track of what documentaries, commentaries, or other major extras you've already watched from your collection? Are there collector spreadsheet templates that are available that make it specific but simple?

Since I generally try to do all the extras at once I just put the DVD upside down on the rack when I've watched the movie but not the extras.

I hardly have time to watch all of the movies I own, much less all of the extras. I've watched a few things on some of discs (mainly with films I love, or films that left me intrigued enough to want to watch more). So for me, it's a matter of having seen such a small quantity of extras that I can probably name each of the documentaries and whatnot I've watched off the top of my head.

-JP

If I like a movie enough to watch the extras, I will watch them right away.

In the notes section of DVDProfiler, I have put in all of the features on a disc. Here's an example of the latest movie I watched (Sid & Nancy: CC):

[X] - Movie
[] - Commentary /w Screenwriter,Cast & More
[] - "England's Glory" Documentary
[] - 1976 Interview /w The Sex Pistols
[] - Rare Telephone Interview /w Sid Vicious
[] - Interviews /w Sid & Nancy from D.O.A.: A Right of Passage

Once I've watched a movie or feature, I go in there and put the X, and I have a custom tag set up for "Completed", so once every box is checked, I'll mark that tag to show that I have completed that disc.

I almost always will watch the extras before moving the DVD onto the shelf from the "unwatched" section.

I don't always listen to all the commentaries, though, and for that I simply keep a running list on a piece of paper. (How's that for a primitive solution?) I currently have about 200 commentaries that need my attention.

Commentaries are usually the last thing I listen to, but I usually watch the extras following the first watch of the movie.

I run www.ratethatcommentary.com, and this thread made me wonder if a "see every commentary you voted for" function would be useful. After you watch a commentary you could vote on it, and then that list of what you've voted on would help you keep track of what commentaries you've seen. I guess it would be similar to using IMDB's vote history to keep track of what movies you've seen.

The downside is that you'd have to vote on everything you watch, which means putting more thought into it than just ticking a box saying "I watched this."

Actually, I guess I could even add that "I watched this" box to each commentary, and you could just check them off if you've seen it, even if you didn't want to vote for it. Hmm. (Sorry, thinking out loud here.)

Would anyone use that?

I made my own spreadsheet (exported from DVDProfiler and then modified with some macros). I can track if I've watched the movie or not, the bonus features and commentaries. It can sort by title or by completion. It's a great tool.

It was a small project to learn how to use Excel better and works for my needs.

That might be fun, but unfortunately wouldn't help for my immediate need - I want to know what commentaries I <i>haven't</i> heard yet.

Yeah, I was kicking that idea around in my head after posting that, and realized that to really make it useful I'd also need to add an "I own this" box for each DVD so it could generate a list of what you own but haven't listened to. Unfortunately, that opens a new can of worms, because of titles like I, Robot, where some of the releases have all of the commentaries listed, but others only have a subset of those.

I guess the other way to go about it would be an "I need to listen to this commentary" checkbox, and then a way to pull up that list of what you checked. That would probably only be a slight advantage over a text file on your computer where you could keep track of the same thing, though. :)

I made an ID in DVD profiler called firstname(commentaries) & firstname(extras)

Then just use the watched on event and choose the appropriate one.

I also created ones for multidisc sets (mainly for TV ones) firstname(disc 1) etc. Since it is sometimes weeks in between viewing.