I know there have probably been a million threads along the lines of this, but I'm in serious need of help.

Since I'm only 17, I don't have much space for my DVD collection, and it really shows, since I have absolutely no more space left for new DVDs, including the ones I got for Christmas. I realize that the obvious answer is "buy a new DVD tower!", but I'd really like to eliminate some of the DVDs I have because I need the money, and I know there's always gonna be DVDs in the future that I want.

I always trade in DVDs at FYE, they offer the most for your trade ins and if you opt for store credit (which I always do), you get 25% more.

Now, I have a few doubles of some DVDs, those are:

1. Sex and the City: The Complete Second Season - one copy has the original solid blue on the spine which looks nice, but the other copy has the clear spine and matches the other sets.

2. Forgetting Sarah Marshall - one copy is the single-disc Fullscreen edition, and the other copy is the 3 Disc Special Edition

3. Sex and the City: The Movie - one is the two-disc extended edition, and one copy is the Fullscreen theatrical version.

4. The Nutty Professor I and II - one copy is the Franchise Collection disc with both films on one flipper disc, and I have the films' individual releases which have the original menus.

5. Scary Movie 3 - one is the theatrical version and one is unrated.

6. Scary Movie 4 - one is the theatrical version, one is the Fullscreen unrated, and one is the Widescreen unrated edition.

I'm sure I could find more in my collection, but that's just to get a general idea.

If a film becomes available with the options of buying the Unrated on DVD or the Theatrical Version on DVD, I usually buy one version at the time of its release and the other version somewhere down the road when it's much cheaper. I know it's weird, but I just like having both versions of a film.

Back when I first started buying DVDs, I used to buy the Fullscreen editions of the film because I didn't have a Widescreen HDTV back then and I found the black bars annoying. This continued for a few years after I upgraded to DVD. I have considered trading in my Fullscreen DVDs and use some of the money I get back towards the Widescreen editions of the films, as most of them are relatively cheap (Bringing Down the House, 50 First Dates, She's the Man, etc.)

Then there's the problem of DVDs I own that I'm not a huge fan of, that won't make much money simply because they're too old or aren't that valuable to begin with. For example, back in 2007 I blind-bought the movie "The Number 23" for $18 at Target on its release date. I figured it's cheaper than a movie ticket, popcorn and soda at the movies (that's still my philosophy with blind-buys). I watched it and thought it was OK, but a few years later I decided to give it a second chance. It still sucked. MSRP plummeted and trade-in value is next to nothing. Lesson learned: if you're blind-buying a movie close to the DVD's release date, watch it within a week so if it sucks the trade-in value is still worth something.

And then there's multiple editions of some titles. I own 2 or 3 editions of certain films and I kept them because not only are they OOP but there are some bonus features on one edition that isn't on the other. Great.

Another issue is TV-DVDs. I buy those the most because if it's a show that ended it's a hassle to catch the episodes in order in syndication, and plus the episodes get chopped up for more commercials. Some of the TV-DVD packages take up so much space it's insane. A set with 3 discs can take up the space of 2 standard DVD cases. Some shows I already own (such as American Dad) have had their packages slimmed down to standard DVD size cases, and I like that idea. If I had the money, I would trade in the old versions of volumes 1 - 3 to have more room and upgrade to the slimmer cases, but at $33 - $35 a pop, that's out of the question. There's also the occasion that there's a certain season in a series that I don't like at all, but I hesitate to trade in that certain season because I'm a completist and it will bug me.

And finally, there's the case of the DVD you just can't seem to get rid of. I took High School Musical 2 and a copy of Season 2 of Sex and the City to FYE multiple time in hopes of trading them in, but they were rejected because they're only worth a penny. I'm not into selling on eBay because of all the horror stories I hear, and generally selling online is a hassle.

So, can anyone offer advice?

Your first mistake was buying foolscreen movies. Your second mistake was saying that out loud here on this thread. Your third mistake was buying those foolscreen crap on release day. Prepare for a DVDTalk whooping!

I know that buying the FOOLscreen version of the films was wrong. The newer ones (Sex and the City and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) I got free as part of a Buy One Get One Free deal, and like I said, I bought the older movies in Fullscreen when I hardly knew anything about DVDs and was switching over from VHS about 6 years ago.

Sell off your doubles, and sell off the ones you don't want to watch anymore or don't like anymore. Simple as that.

eBay IS your friend. Overall, that is. I highly recommend using it to get more than a penny.

Agreed.

Not only do you need to get rid of much of your collection, you need to stop buying so many DVDs that you only watch once. Consider a Netflix account, or check out Redbox for $1 rentals.

The lesson learned should be to rent DVDs and not make many blind buys.

Yup. Renting is the way to go especially if you catch yourself only watching many of your dvds only once (even the three dollar deals really aren't worth it when you take into account such things as space). I learned that after having about 200 dvds. I sold off/traded in about 80-85% of them and buy very, very rarely now. My collection is now at 43 (again - by building up my collection in rare cases).

For the most part, I only buy TV shows on DVD (or Blu Ray) now then sell them on eBay.

And if you have a bunch of extra DVDs that are worth very little, consider donating them to your local library. Plus you can give a receipt to your parents for a tax deduction.

As much as most of us hate non OAR discs, as far as re-sale value goes I've seen many that are actually worth more than their widescreen counterparts.
It doesn't apply universally, but if a title is OoP in a full/dual version , yet still available in a remaster widescreen only release, there is a good chance you will be able to get more selling the full/dual version.

With a steady increasing proliferation of widescreen displays I don't expect this will always be the case, but for now it seems to be. There are still a lot of non anal, non-enthusiasts that will buy a title used and would prefer not to have black bars.

Have you ever considered giving some of the titles that you don't want to friends? I've always done this. It's a win for both parties: I get to give something to a friend and clear some space while the friend gets some additions for his or her collection.

Of course, this doesn't apply to full screen DVDs. You should never give a real friend one of those.

Do you even have a job? How are you supporting your addiction? You shouldn't be buying so many movies especially at age 17. Once you start college, your probably not going to have time to watch most of your collection.

^^ Agree with above, get a subscription to Netflix and probably dump 75-80% of your collection. Only keep the ones that have good replay value for you and definitely dump all the foolscreen junk.

You can always buy movies you want after they've been out for awhile, previously-viewed too. Or ask for them at Christmas. Before blind buying a title, check reviews on here, and elsewhere.

Look into Ebay. You can make lots or sell them off one by one. I've put movies that were crap and gotten at least 2.50 and up for them.

Well, for starters the first thing that the OP--and others like him (her?)--need to know is that what you paid for something is entirely irrelevant when it comes time to trade it in. Do not think that a DVD that cost $18 upon release will fetch anything close to that two years later. If you're interested in keeping your money, don't buy DVD's in the first place!

That said, one obvious way of streamlining your library is to part ways with superfluous copies of the same title. You have the 3-disc edition of Forgetting Sarah Marshall; you don't need the single-disc fullscreen version. Take those redundant versions and cash them in. Don't worry about how little the payout is; you're not going to do much better any one place than other these days.

As for selling on eBay, I'm actually against this idea, especially for someone your age. The reason is that, in the last several years, eBay policies have made it very easy for buyers to place orders, receive their merchandise, file a complaint and get eBay to make you give them their money back--without any way of ensuring that you get the item you sent in return. Let's say you sold your FS copy of Forgetting Sarah Marshall on eBay. It's perfectly plausible that your buyer will insist that what you sent was a scratched up ex-rental copy from Blockbuster, even though that's not at all what you owned or sent him. He, however, has just such a copy and sends that back to you, insisting that's all he ever received. In the end, he's got your pristine used copy and the money, and you're stuck having paid the listing fees to essentially trade your good copy for a bad one.

Trading into a store won't pay as well as selling yourself, but at least it's free of most of that kind of hassle. If you're really put off by the payout, you might consider donating to your local library branch. If you're expecting to go to college soon (and I sincerely hope you are), you might even consider taking these "lesser" titles with you to college. This way, you've got them on hand for when your roommate and his buddies get drunk and insist on watching something, and if they get trashed, at least it's not your 3-disc collector's edition being ruined. Or, you could donate to your campus library and make friends that way!

It's not that I was expecting to get anything close to $18 back two years later, especially for such a movie like that!

That's what I was considering doing. I figured if I go through my doubles I can get rid of the ones I don't really need or want, and for some doubles that are good (such as FSM), I'll bring the inferior editions to college and keep the good ones at home, that way I won't have to worry as much.

Advice from an old fart: get rid of everything you've got. It's all garbage. Trade them in for some good movies, i.e. movies made a few decades before you were born. Make sure you get at least a third of them in black-and-white and a third in foreign languages with English subtitles. Being in b&w and subtitled gets you extra points. And if you're a guy, make sure a third are westerns. If I was your father, believe me, no son of mine would have SEX AND THE CITY or HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. And if you were my daughter...? Maybe I'd begrudgingly let you have HSM.

I appreciate the point about expanding one's exposure to films of different eras and genres, but to suggest that "good movies" are those from "a few decades before [the OP was] born" is crazy. I've enjoyed a handful of Westerns, but I don't feel like I need to pretend that most of them aren't just generic parades of racist, sexist machismo to justify that I am, in fact, a guy. (And, yes, I realize that the suggestions provided were somewhat tongue-in-cheek and hope to have responded in kind.)

Ditch the political correctness. It limits your horizons. All tongue-in-cheek aside, the best westerns are much more than something you can blithely label "racist, sexist, or macho." They have multiple layers and even if such attitudes are echoed in them, as frequently happens, they usually comment on those attitudes in profound ways, e.g. John Ford's THE SEARCHERS and Howard Hawks' RIO BRAVO. If you're interested in American cinema, then you need to see the great westerns, of which there are dozens I can list for you. If you claim to want to see good movies, then you're missing out on some great experiences. I was lucky to see most of the great westerns on the big screen, but enough of them are out in good-quality copies on DVD now that you have the opportunity to see them for yourself.

I'm not off-put by so many Westerns because I'm too "politically correct" to just go along with them; I'm put-off because they strike me as one-dimensional. I grew up watching a ton of these things every other weekend at my dad's and they were always the same: Gritty, do-gooder is the only one in town man enough to take on the bad guys/Injuns and proves it by rescuing the only attractive woman in the picture.

That said, I would gladly welcome a starting list of some of the better told tales out of the west, because it's a genre I've always wanted to like. It speaks to the romantic in me (if not necessarily the historian in me). I can say that I do thoroughly enjoy The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, McLintock! and Tombstone. (And, no, I have no intention of defending my enjoyment of Tombstone.) So, exclusive of those, what are, say, ten Westerns you would suggest I check out in the coming year? I can't say how soon I'll get to any of them, but I will be more than happy to discuss them with you (and the rest of the DVD Talk community) once I do.

Without reading any of the other comments, get rid of that full screen garbage immediately. Throw out if necessary. Only keep full screen stuff if it is OAR.

What I appreciate is the fact that you suggested new genres of films for me to explore. What I don't appreciate is the fact that you are more or less ridiculing me for having bought Sex and the City and HSM. Everyone has different tastes in movies, why can't I without hearing "If I was your father, believe me, no son of mine would have SEX AND THE CITY or HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL." Are you my father? No. Does my actual father care what DVDs I own? No. Should he? No. Not to be rude or anything, but if I wanted peoples' opinion on what movies I should and shouldn't like, I would have created a thread for it. Since I didn't, let's not talk about that, or what any "son of yours" would own and not own on DVD. Thanks.

Anyways, getting back on topic. I know I said that I was considering getting rid of my old fullscreen DVDs and replacing them for the widescreen editions later, and I think I will do that. Even if I don't replace them immediately, it will still free up space for the time being, and it'll give me some spending money on some movies I do want now. Tonight I'll be going through all my DVDs and hopefully that'll free up lots of shelf space for me.

Not that I'm taking a side in this, but you did invite the discussion to veer into what you should and shouldn't own by the very nature of your original post. Remember, just because we have a specific direction in mind when we begin threads is no guarantee they won't evolve into something entirely different once begun. That said, I do agree that Ash's lecturing was unnecessarily heavy-handed, even if it was done with a sense of humor that may not have translated across the interwebs the way he intended. (Enough of me speaking for someone else, though; he's perfectly capable of clarifying his own intent.)

It just occurred to me to ask whether you're using a DVD catalog system. I've taken to using DVD Profiler (now that DVD Spot has gone the way of the Betamax) and I like it a lot. You can download a free version and if it wins you over, you can pay to upgrade for more bells and whistles. So far, I've found that the free version is plenty sufficient for my library, which is somewhere around 770 titles or so right now. You might find it helpful in your organization of your library. If you don't care for DVD Profiler, but want to use something like it, there are entire threads about these things in the DVD forum.

Ah, my bad. I didn't mean for my original post to sound that way.


I might just download that. I used to use DVDSpot, which was awesome, but I have switched to DVDAf, and I haven't been updating that as much as I should be. Maybe I'll like DVD Profiler better. Thanks!

You have sex and the city....please tell me you're a girl....

Yeah, the only excuse for owning that is if you're a girl, or you're a SteelBook collector.