How & Why Do You Collect Cinematic Media? Let us know. Do you only collect certain types of media? Do you buy and sell or just buy? Do you have only certain genres you enjoy? What is the purpose of you collection? Do you even conciser yourself a collector? All in all just tell us about your collection and why you collect?

What got me thinking about this was member joecansee's post about selling off his movies that he felt he would never watch again. I responded with a "no" because for me as a collector I am working towards owning every title I enjoy. But most people responded with a "yes". So it made me realize there are all kinds of collectors out there with different goals in mind.

Anywho... As a lover of the cinematic arts it is my goal is to collect a copy of every title that brings me enjoyment. I enjoy all genres. You will find everything from The Carebears to Letherface in my collection. I collect all forms of media as well. I still have and buy plenty of VHS, some of the title you can only get on VHS and other will be replaced with DVD/Blu-ray when I find them for cheap enough. I also like to set a limit of $5.00 per title and $10.00 per season. So sometimes I have to wait a bit before I pick up a title but in the end I always find it. This also causes me to be a bit of a hunter. I am always stopping at every store that sells DVDs. Every thrift store, pawnshop, chain store, bookstore, etc. It drives my wife mad because it takes hours to get anywhere with me. Collecting is not so much a hobby anymore as it is not a way of life. I would say on average 50% of every day is spent in some way or form on the subject of collecting. Whether is watching a movie, going out shopping, or talking on here.

I buy the movies I like to watch, I don't consider it a "collection"

DKEDVD,
Have you ever considered making a DVD/Blu Ray catalog database to put online for everyone else? Your dvd website layout is excellent. Since you are into collecting so much, you should make that one of your missions! Especially since I haven't found a really good DVD catalog database since DVDspot.com shut down.

I just love movies. I really didn't collect VHS or Beta, because I was young (no job, no money). DVDs started as favorite films, but then blind buys, coupons and sales enter the picture. Now all I have to see is a Disney coupon and I'll buy it no questions asked (No Hannah Montana: The Movie - Thank God I had some sense). Steelbooks, I am a completist and ever since I bought Transformers (2007), I just fell in love with them. I look at my collection as a mix of quantity and quality.

God I'd love to but I'd have to charge (probably yearly) just to pay for the web space and whatnot. And I would be scared that it would end up too much like DVDSpot and I would get sued. Ha ha! I wonder what the lay out would have to look like to not get sued? Hmmm... Between my other DVD collecting friend (who also knows how to build websites) and I we could certainly get one up and running. It's a though. But the one thing I would 100% change is it would be for all types of media. VHS, DVD, Blu, HD, Laser, UMD, basically anything with a UPC. Hmm... Now you have me thinking... Especially if I could make the site my full time job.

Same here... I can't even begin to tell you how many horrible sequels/prequels I own. LOL!

Definitely quality over quantity for me. I don't own a title I haven't seen at least three times.

Damn straight! Ha ha ha! J/K! It's cool. All is forgotten.

I don't buy movies to collect, just to have something to watch. I don't get any cable subscriptions or basic, free TV channels to watch so the movies are all I have.

I've started a cataloging database script, but I'm far from finishing it... I've got it setup to include all formats and to keep statistics on how many I've bought, where they were bought at, how much I've spent, etc. I just wish I could design something that looks decent with it. Right now, it's not multi-user capable but it wouldn't be hard to fix up.

I probably never would have started an actual "collection" if I hadn't started buying DVDs for my job, I was never a "movie guy" per se. I had the Star Wars Trilogy...that was about it. Seeing so many movies (and having a great employee discount, big factor there too I admit) I started buying one or two a month...then a week...you know the rest.

I am now at the point where titles are getting donated to the local library because like the post that inspired the OP, I know I'll never watch them--rather save the shelf space for the stuff that will get played.

I have been bit by the completist bug, series wise at least, which was somewhat surprising to me. I'll never watch Godfather 3 again, which according to the previous paragraph means I should get rid of it...but then I wouldn't have the set...and that would bug me! (something I never thought I would say).

I see myself basically as an archivist. I acquire titles I either want to see or feel I need to see or need to have available just in case a project I'm working on requires me to see it. I buy DVDs and VHS tapes and record tapes off cable. I like physical media because then it's real to me. Digital files on a hard drive aren't real to me. I like to pick it up and hold it and, if pre-recorded, look at the box art. I like to know I have it and not have to depend on Blockbuster or Netflix or TCM, or a video streaming service or an on-demand service for it.

Every so often, I'm engaged in some project and realize I need to see such-and-such a film to compare it to something else and, luckily, more often than not, I have that title. Most of my collection is pretty obscure and many of the DVDs are out of print. Much of my VHS collection has never been released on DVD. I don't download off the computer.

I taught a film/animation course this past semester (the last class was last night) and I showed 5-9 film/anime clips per class, showing only one complete film and about a dozen complete TV episodes, in addition to many more shorter clips. Everything I showed was from my personal collection. The college contributed no material at all.

I have more movies than I'll ever see in my life. If I retired tomorrow and started watching stuff every day, maybe I'd see everything before I died. And the fact is, I truly want to see everything I have and re-view most of what I've already seen. It won't happen, but at least I know that if I suddenly want to compare the Lex Barker Tarzan movies with the Gordon Scott Tarzan movies, or the Dead End Kids movies with their Bowery Boys counterparts, or if I want to read "Little Women," by Louisa May Alcott and then see three different film versions plus several animated episodes based on the book, I know where to find them.

I buy films that i love or that look interesting to me. I can't believe people buy sequels they don't like to complete a collection, sometimes I think people are more into collecting then actual film.

I love movies. Simple as that. I buy DVDs/Blu-Rays/ (in the past) VHS. I buy the films I like (even if it's a certain appeal for something minute ex. The Protector...god do I hate Tony Jaa but I do like his action stuff in it well some of it...it was very cheap ok?). I am not a completist, if there's a crappy sequel (by my standards of course for ex: I love Rambo II and III out of child nostalgia and due to that I like them now..are they good..not really, entertaining? yeah) than I don't buy it. If I like it, I buy it. I buy every film I like so little by little my collection of films get bigger. Also if I think I'll like it, I'll buy it. I've

I'm a also film major so at the same time, I study cinema. My knowledge of it to my circle of friends is extensive but compared to most of you I don't think it is, but i know a good chunk thanks to DVDtalk. I love to see movies but at the same time I have a great memory for what I'm watching so I quietly analyze it as well.

I'm in the buy and sell group. I hate clutter and stuff collecting dust.

dkedvd's posts remind me a bit of gutwrencher. He hasn't posted in over 2 years though. Hope all is well with him and his canoes.

Hahaha. Yea its stupid. There is just something about having the entire series that I like. It all started out with wanting to buy box sets featuring the entire series of films (just cuz I though they were cool) but that can be expensive. It is much cheaper to just buy all the titles individually most of the time. But it doesn't make much sense to me either even though I do it. I guess its just the collecting side of me coming out. But I wouldn't say I'm more into collecting than I am films. 75% films 25% collecting. LOL.

A good chunk of it is admittedly because I'm a collector by nature, and I like having sets and groups and series. Collecting movies and TV shows is a great way to do this in that it's not something like, say, Precious Moments figurines that just sit on the shelf and collect dust. For example, I have all 40 of the single disc releases of Star Trek TOS, for a couple of reasons. I love the show, I prefer how the episodes are in production order as opposed to airdate order like all the season sets, those 40 discs look pretty impressive on my shelf. That last thing is also a good reason, it's something that a lot of other collectors don't like, so by collecting them I set myself a little bit apart from other collectors.

A non-media example would be Magic: The Gathering. It's a fantasy/strategy card game that you can collect or play or both. When I was younger, I used to collect sports cards and such, even though I wasn't much into sports, just because I loved the idea of collecting something like that. I also had tons of Star Trek/Star Wars collectors cards, I even had the old Desert Storm cards. But I always felt bad that all I could do with them is put them in binder pages or boxes and look at them. With Magic cards, I can collect them and play with them. That's also how I feel about collecting media: it's something I can hold, there's always store exclusives to hunt down, out of print titles I missed the first time around, or just hunting in used shops for stuff I want to have but don't want to pay the full price for it online or at Best Buy.

I have learned when to stop collecting entries in series that go bad. I'll never own Batman Forever or Batman & Robin, I only own the original Halloween and the TV version, I currently only own season 4 of Star Trek: Enterprise (but I do own Insurrection and Nemesis...).
You gotta find a line somewhere and try to stick to it.

And there's also a little bit of an archivist, in that I can't wait to start showing my 2 y.o. a lot of these movies when he gets older. And there's a little part inside me that feels warm and fuzzy knowing I own a few out of print titles, like if something happened to the world, and there were just pockets of civilization, we would each be able to contribute something to the collective knowledge of humanity. (I've also got several hundred books I could add too.)

I buy lots of films because I love cinema, but I also blind-buy many titles I think I might enjoy. Some I don't love nearly as much as I want to, so those get sold off or given away. But I've only done that with a handful of the 3000+ titles I own.

I've been a collector/hoarder all of my life, and that behavior is currently mainly focused on DVDs/BDs.

I only buy stuff that I plan to watch, but I must confess that I'll likely never watch a bunch of stuff.

A lot of things I buy only because they are exclusives. The collector/hoarder in me likes having the bonus disc of Barbie Princess Warrior only available at Circuit City, even though it will likely just sit in a box until I die. But I might watch it someday, or give it to a daughter, or trade it to another exclusive collector. I like having the options.

For the bulk of my ~5000 title collection, I only buy things I want to watch. For years, my unwatched list was growing far faster than my watched list, but I think the tide is turning, and I'm watching slightly more than I buy. But unless I slow down my buying even more, it will take me ~20 years to catch up and get to the point where everything is watched at least once. But I like having lots of options. I might be in the mood for French silent films tomorrow, or zombie films, or Spongebob. With a huge collection, I have a bit of everything, and don't have to wait for rentals to arrive.

Yes, I understand the people who think owning this many titles is crazy, but I am what I am.

Part of my justification is that I've paid less for my collection than many people have paid to just rent fewer titles. And I get to keep/bequeath all my titles.

I see my collection as a library specific to myself. I'm pretty sure there's more than a few DVDs/Blu-rays that I have that I'll never watch again, but the library will be incomplete without them. Also, while I may not watch a majority of my collection again in their entirety, I always whip out a disc to spin a scene or two, or jump through a 2 hour movie I'm already familiar with in about half an hour, getting my fix. So even if I won't watch the entire movie again, having the discs on hand is nice and can always be enjoyed.

I'm building a personal library. I look for obscure stuff and lots of horror and sci-fi from the 80s and earlier. Eventually that evolved into pretty much all the other genres. Lots of stuff on VHS that hasn't been put out on DVD. I've got a decent amount of stuff from the pre-code Hollywood days.

Right now I'm just under 9,500 movies with somewhere over 5,000 being unseen, which I'm slowly working through. I have shelves completely full with rows of movies on the floor until I get/build more shelving for them. I also have 22 large binders full of movies and will need to buy more binders the next time I find them on sale.

Like Trevor, I have a little bit of everything, so there's always something for everyone whether it's Spongebob Squarepants or the Turkish version of Star Wars or some gory Asian film or maybe someone wants to come over and watch a real dance(some sort of prom type thing) for mentally disabled teens where the band plays awful heavy metal.

Doesn't sound very personal to me.

When can I come in to get a membership?



As I was just watching the apocalyptic THE ROAD in theaters last week - if we ever lose electricity some day - I thought about everyone in DVD forums and how everyone's gonna think "Shit, there goes that hobby I spent so much time and money on." Has anyone invented a hand-crank hometheater system? Wind up for 2 hours of entertainment! Here's an article on someone who hand-cranked their Ipod: http://geektechnique.org/index.php?id=236

Here's a hand-crank Media Player from the dude that invented the crank radio. Only for $200: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/17/...trevor-baylis/

Ok, there's a few things for the wife and kids.

I mostly buy DVDs these days, but I still have several thousand VHS, Beta, LD, and CED movies because they don't have a proper DVD release yet.

I started working in a video store as a teen and I'd pick out obscure movies that looked interesting and I went on from there.

Signature update needed me thinks ...