Trevor

I checked prices at ten or so companies, and bought from a few different, but I think I ended up getting most of them from Meritline. They had decent prices and frequent 17-25% coupons.

Lt. Brannigan

That sounds wonderful to me, I would love to be able to do that, my only problem then would be where to store the original boxes.

mdnitoil

Well, I took the in for a penny, in for a pound approach. I track in DVD Profiler which case and slot number a given disc is stored. When I fill a case, I then generate a custom report that includes cover images, overview, and other relevant information in alphabetical title order. I take the report to Kinkos and have it printed out and bound and then store it inside the case. After that, I trash the packaging. Now, there are certain titles that I prefer to leave on the shelf just as they are, Criterions for example. For the most part though, the packaging is pretty darn vanilla and it's what's costing me the most grief with regards to storage. Whether I try to put all the cases on shelves, or box them all up and shove them in a closet, they still take up a crapload of space. At some point, I just had to decide what my priority was, and if I wanted a big collection (3000+), then the packaging would have to go.

J-Dubya

throw em away and join the blu-ray revolution!!

jjcool

I had my cd collection in binders years ago. After having to rebuy a number of cds, I will never do that again. The simple act of putting a disc in and out of the sleeve scratches them.
Instead of the binders, I went the thinpak route. Everything 2 discs and under is in a 7mm case. Everything 3-6 discs is in a standard width dvd case. Cut the shelf space used in half.

mike07

Another option (not for me) is to use Blu-ray cases for DVDs. I have a friend who actually did this with his ~500 DVD collection, he separates his blu-ray discs from the dvds anyway. The cases are shorter and slimmer but it would be too much work to convert over 2,000 DVDs, and the cases cost more than the average DVD slimpack case.

Lt. Brannigan

I am slightly obsessive compulsive about my cases and I can't bring myself to throw them away. But on the other hand I am more obsessed with eliminating clutter.

Exploring all the other options and experiencing horrible things with binders (Mostly because being such a idiot I thought they were all the same), I am looking for a viable alternative to shrink down the size of my collection. And those cases look nice. how long have you been using the cases?

mdnitoil

About a year now. Unlike the binders, the sleeves are suspended from rails so there is no accumulative weight on any given disc, depending on it's position in the binder. For me, one of the side benefits of going this route was that it opened the door to used product. Ex-rentals with stickers all over the case? Not a problem since I'm just going to trash the case anyway.

Lt. Brannigan

The fact that there would be no accumulated weight is a very attractive thought to me. So one year and no problems? Anything that I should be wary of?

mdnitoil

Just the fact that the sleeves only effectively protect one side of the disc. Any flippers should not be stored in these. Still, I've filled three cases and was able to take a basement that was practically overflowing and reduce it to a couple modest-sized shelves.

Lt. Brannigan

Then that sounds like the way to go for me. My collection isn't that big, but I have very little storage space, and effectively eliminating a cabinet sounds nice. Thank you for your time.