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Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

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Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Old 01-28-12, 03:49 PM
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Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

My collection's been growing a lot lately, so I got to thinking about how often I watch the different movies. With DVD Profiler, I of course know what titles I have, but there's just something different about actually seeing the dvds. Is your collection so big that you sometimes forget what movies and tv shows you have ? How often do you watch certain titles ?
Old 01-28-12, 04:47 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

I have an average-sized collection for this place (~2,000 DVDs/ Blu-rays), but I only own movies that I know I will want to revisit. In addition, given the pressure from stores and other content providers to move away from hard media to cloud-distributed files, I view my plastic discs as insurance against the loss of access to movies.

For example, Paramount stopped selling catalog titles a couple of years ago. I would be SOL if I wanted to watch, say, When Worlds Collide, if I didn't already own the DVD. It's not available on Netflix or Hulu, and if I wanted to buy it new, copies are going for $35 and up at Amazon. With my collection, I can watch a favorite film any time I like without worrying that it could vanish, as titles at Netflix and other online sources do.

So, no, my collection is not too huge. I keep track of what I own with a spreadsheet on my phone (I love Dropbox!) so I'm in no danger of rebuying what I already own.

Last edited by Gobear; 01-29-12 at 08:57 AM.
Old 01-28-12, 05:10 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Yes, Yes, and Yes...driving my wife CRAZY!
Old 01-28-12, 05:19 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

I very seldom forget what I've got...although I did accidentally buy a second copy of United 93 once. Other than that, I've never bought a title twice without having a reason to do so.

As to how often I watch certain titles, it depends on the title. I'm trying not to rewatch anything lately, as I've got far, far too many DVDs that I've never watched the first time. So I'm trying to watch things I've never watched before. Admittedly, I'm trying to watch things that I don't think that I'll like (that have ended up in my collection mainly due to being incredibly cheap...past history shows that I'll buy most anything for a buck or two), and if it turns out that I do indeed dislike them, I get rid of them. This process could help me in whittling down my collection to a more manageable 2,500 titles or so, but I still can't stop buying. It's decidedly a sickness.

However, the one hard and fast resolution that I have this year regarding DVDs and Blu-rays is that I'm cutting myself off at $75 per month on buying 'em. Last year, I averaged around $200 per month on DVD and Blu-ray purchases. This year, I'm trying to cut it back to one TV season per month and one higher-priced Blu-ray (Criterion, new Disney animated title, etc.) per month. Whatever's left out of the $75 after is marked for cheap impulse buys.

But to get back to your original question, yes--my collection's too damned big.
Old 01-28-12, 05:21 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

No, I own 309 at the moment. It feels like a big collection to me, but it's not that amazing compared to a lot of the users on here.
Old 01-28-12, 06:31 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

My wife says "Yes!!!". I say "No!!!". I don't trust "cloud" services to provide what I want when I want it at a "reasonable" price. I'd rather own what I like. I've done it all my life with books, music, and movies. I do a fair share of impulse/blind-buy purchasing due to low prices but the vast majority of my collection consists of titles I'd watch again if I didn't have so much unopened stuff to get through first.
Old 01-28-12, 10:37 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Nah, I've only got ~2,000 DVDs. So far in 2012, I haven't bought a whole lot. My impulse buying has ceased since 2010 when my local Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery/Blockbuster stores went out of business. Now I plan to spend time watching all of them rather than spending money on a lot of new stuff.
Old 01-28-12, 10:49 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

I only have 18 Cabinets to hold my modest collection!

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Old 01-28-12, 11:26 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Yes. It's strange because I actually look at my collection and get mad at myself for having so many, but I keep buying. I only do Blu-ray these days, but still have a ton of DVDs and I'm foolishly re-buying unwatched (and watched) DVDs on Blu-ray. I know I will never be able to watch everything I own. Is there a support group?

DVDs - 3,261
BDs - 1,371

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/dvd-talk/57...l#post11056932

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Old 01-28-12, 11:35 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Yes,my collection IS way to damn big. I have at the moment 2,410 DVDs/Blu-Rays,and sadly 1,019 of those I haven't watched. Yet I STILL continue to Blind/Impulse Buy all the damn time. For instance on Tuesday I am buying 5 Blu-Rays,3 of which are Blind Buys(Drive,In Time,The Thing). And my stupidity really knows no bounds when it comes to certain Blind Buys,like some TV Shows that I have bought all the seasons-so far of and havent seen a single episode of(Desperate Housewives,Entourage,How I Met Your Mother,among MANY others)!!!!!! And the worst part of HIMYM is I bought Season 1 on release day when it came with a Bonus Disc at Circuit City,and have the other 5 seasons that followed,yet haven't watched a single episode. And even tho I have 1,019 unwatched DVDs/Blu-Rays(technically alot more since there are ALOT of TV seasons involved) I still find myself rewatching stuff at LEAST 85% of the time. Plus I have 3 rooms FILLED with discs,and worse part is I dont have the majority of my discs in any kind of arrangement,which is absolute hell sometimes when I wanna watch something and have to go searching for it. The only specific catergories I have are my Blu-Ray & Wrestling collections. Sorry for the boring rant LOL.
Old 01-28-12, 11:59 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

I rewatch very few. A lot of my content is TV on dvd and making it through those once is an effort.
But I usually buy cheap enough that it's not worth trading/selling them, and like has been said, the 5-20$ I spent is worth the 'peace of mind' that I'll be able to watch it in the future whenever I want to. There are some titles that I think, "OK, I will *never* want to watch/rewatch that" so I do sell trade or give it away, but while my collection is large (by my standards), it's not so large that getting rid of a couple titles will make that big a difference in space, and it's large enough that giving them away won't make too much a difference in time to view.
The only things I've forgotten are some TV series, having season X and needing season Y, or vice versa. I go through spates where I won't buy a title for months, then I'll buy a bunch (Christmas season last year was probably one of the bigger periods in some time.)
That said, I don't have anywhere the collection of some of the frea - er, aficionados here. *My* collection's just right, *yours* is too big
Old 01-29-12, 12:18 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Kind of, just because of the room it takes, and the fact that with 2183 dvds/blu rays it would take me a bit over 254 days to watch them all (assuming I just watched them all day with no sleep, no eating, no breaks of any kind).
Old 01-29-12, 12:58 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Well, probably. I'm at 4000+ right now and yes, there's a fair chunk I haven't watched yet. I do try to watch new stuff, but I like revisiting stuff I've already watched too. Sure I've got the equivalent of a very healthy house down payment on my walls and in storage containers, but I think of them as the library. If I want to watch something it's there and I don't have to worry about access or cost (beyond what I paid to get it in the first place). Besides I ain't getting any younger and someday I may not be able to afford whatever is being charged for media. As long as I've got a roof over my head and can afford electricity and have a working dvd/blu-ray player (blu-ray is less future proof I think) I'll have something to watch, even if it may be oldish.
Old 01-29-12, 07:39 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

At 589, part of me doesn't think my collection is too large, but the other part of me didn't think I'd ever own this many. I've pretty much stopped buying for now, my computer repair business has been slow as snail shit lately and I had to pull my head down out of the clouds. Now we can catch up on the DVDs that I haven't marked as watched yet in DVD Profiler (we've watched them, just not recently enough to mark as watched). But I still have 2½ shelves left to fill on my 2nd 6-shelf bookcase, so I'm not done yet, just done for now. -kd5-
Old 01-29-12, 08:49 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Originally Posted by Spottedfeather
1) Is your collection so big that you sometimes forget what movies and tv shows you have?

2)How often do you watch certain titles ?
1) Yes. I have, on occasion, re-bought specific anime TV volumes that I thought I was missing but wasn't. Not that often, given the scope of my collection, but it has happened.

2) I would like to re-watch most of what I have, but who has the time? I still have hundreds of titles I need to watch for the first time! There are some films that I go back to regularly (once every few years), but they represent a very small fraction of my total collection. If I had the time, of course, I'd do that more often.

If I retired tomorrow (and I wish I could), I've got enough stuff to watch--on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray--to last me the rest of my life...and then some.

And, yes, I prefer owning physical media to relying on some amorphous "cloud."
Old 01-29-12, 08:56 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

I pay to own content not to lease it. As such I didn't rent movies until those video rental machines came along - it was actually cheaper to buy them previewed than rent new if I just waited a few months. I also don't have cable (getting about a dozen stations OTA).

People who come into my home have said "wow you have a lot of DVDs" often in a snarky way but when I tell them I've done the math and on a monthly basis I spend 1/2 of what the industry says the average person spends on cable they usually get that awkward look on their face since, of course, they're part of the group paying double what I do for cable with nothing in return.

Also, aside from pre-viewed purchases that I treated as a cheaper than new release rental I didn't have to return (Insomnia) I only buy stuff with high replay value (mostly TV on DVD). I'm actually in the middle of King of Queens for the third time since Sony put out the complete series value package a few months ago.

With so little good stuff I'm into on cable these days, yet again, it's proven to be cheaper to just get complete season/series sets of stuff I want.

I have been toying with trashing all the packaging and putting everything in those big Case Logic binders to save on space.
Old 01-29-12, 09:18 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

I think so: after several recent purges, I still have (according to DVDAf) 1056 titles (1771 actual discs). There were just too many titles I blind bought because everybody on the forums were talking them up, or I would go into Gamestop back when they used to sell DVDs and they would have their "buy 2, get four free" sales, and load up on stuff that I wouldn't have bought otherwise but because it was on sale, that somehow made it "okay". No more of that, now I use my iPhone and call up my wishlist online and if it's not there, I don't get it.


Originally Posted by wz42

I have been toying with trashing all the packaging and putting everything in those big Case Logic binders to save on space.
I started this. A few years back I found a bunch of Good Eats DVDs cheap, and grabbed about a dozen or so. I recently took all those and all my M*A*S*H discs and put them in a binder. I plan to do the same for my Star Trek TOS (the original single disc volumes) and I'd like to do that Battlestar Galactica book like Bill Hunt did on the thedigitalbits a few years ago.

Also did this a while back for some of our childrens DVDs, like Thomas and Curious George. Those were sucking up a lot of space.
Old 01-29-12, 09:45 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Originally Posted by milo bloom
I started this. A few years back I found a bunch of Good Eats DVDs cheap, and grabbed about a dozen or so. I recently took all those and all my M*A*S*H discs and put them in a binder. I plan to do the same for my Star Trek TOS (the original single disc volumes) and I'd like to do that Battlestar Galactica book like Bill Hunt did on the thedigitalbits a few years ago.

Also did this a while back for some of our childrens DVDs, like Thomas and Curious George. Those were sucking up a lot of space.
I could see the kids not caring but for yourself have you missed the packaging?

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't but haven't done so yet since after it's done it's kinda done.
Old 01-29-12, 10:04 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Originally Posted by wz42
I could see the kids not caring but for yourself have you missed the packaging?

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't but haven't done so yet since after it's done it's kinda done.
Not for the kids stuff nor my other stuff.

The things like Good Eats and M*A*S*H have fairly generic packaging, and M*A*S*H especially took up so much space because we had the original extra-wide 3 disc cases.
Old 01-29-12, 10:07 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

I don't think I have enough DVDs/Blus (1323 titles as of now). My ex thought I did, but then would say something like, "I can't believe you don't own 'The Sound of Music', you need that". I wouldn't walk into someone's home and tell them they have too many books, CDs/records, clothes, games, cigars, coins, bottles of wine, Hummel figurines (okay, maybe Hummel figurines ) etc. Buy what makes you happy and I love movies and owning a movie makes me happy. If I had a bad day or am feeling down, I can watch a good movie and it will snap me right outta it. And the last couple years I've gotten very smart about buying movies cheap (thanks mainly to this site), so I spend less on movies a month than my friends spend on going out drinking. And I couldn't dare tell them they spend too much on that!

Last edited by Indy24LA; 02-04-12 at 08:19 PM.
Old 01-29-12, 10:16 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Originally Posted by milo bloom
Not for the kids stuff nor my other stuff.

The things like Good Eats and M*A*S*H have fairly generic packaging, and M*A*S*H especially took up so much space because we had the original extra-wide 3 disc cases.
Thanks for the FYI. I'm going to give it a shot with a % of my stuff over the next couple weeks and keep packaging over that time. If I find I don't regret it I'll convert everything over to Case Logic and just chuck the packaging.
Old 01-29-12, 10:19 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Originally Posted by Indy24LA
I don't think I have enough DVDs/Blus (1797 titles as of now). My ex thought I did, but then would say something like, "I can't believe you don't own 'The Sound of Music', you need that". I wouldn't walk into someone's home and tell them they have too many books, CDs/records, clothes, games, cigars, coins, bottles of wine, Hummel figurines (okay, maybe Hummel figurines ) etc. Buy what makes you happy and I love movies and owning a movie makes me happy. If I had a bad day or am feeling down, I can watch a good movie and it will snap me right outta it. And the last couple years I've gotten very smart about buying movies cheap (thanks mainly to this site), so I spend less on movies a month than my friends spend on going out drinking. And I couldn't dare tell them they spend too much on that!
It's weird. People are getting to the point they think they can make whatever comment on your life to you that's on their mind yet they're shocked if someone does it to them.

I try to cut people like that out of my life.
Old 01-29-12, 11:52 AM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Originally Posted by wz42
It's weird. People are getting to the point they think they can make whatever comment on your life to you that's on their mind yet they're shocked if someone does it to them.

I try to cut people like that out of my life.

-kd5-
Old 01-29-12, 01:02 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

Originally Posted by Indy24LA
I...so I spend less on movies a month than my friends spend on going out drinking. And I couldn't dare tell them they spend too much on that!
Pretty much the same here but add hunting and fishing. Every time my wife complains I remind her I do *neither* of those very expensive hobbies and spend far less on books/music/movies than those guys spend on supplies alone.
Old 01-29-12, 01:53 PM
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Re: Is Your Collection Too Huge ?

A bit too large, which happened in part because of those $1.50 dvd at the pawn shops, some where blind buys because they were the same cost as renting. One of the issue with even so-so films is that many are worthless and I use the hanging file cases so they take up little room and think I might as well keep them because there is little reason to give it away unless I dislike the film of course.

I still would like to refine my collection a bit, with seasons of shows, all these movies, plus life and new programing and films what are the odds of watching a so-so film again? Slim I imagine.

I have upgraded a few films from dvd to blu-ray and hang on to the dvd just in case because there is little reason to give it away because it most likely has no value.

One issue I have with any item that is designed to be used is when does it stop, slow down? 1,000-5,000, 10,000? My current mind set does not care for the idea of just having more and more to no end, something like art goes on a wall and services its purpose, movies, books etc.. are designed to be used and I personally do not want so many to where that purpose cannot be fulfilled any longer.

I am not a collector, I simply want films in their best quality possible, cases are not the best method too me nor are huge box sets that take up too much space.

Originally Posted by wz42
It's weird. People are getting to the point they think they can make whatever comment on your life to you that's on their mind yet they're shocked if someone does it to them.

I try to cut people like that out of my life.
We all have opinions about everything, some people may think I have too many movies (around 450 plus a few television programs) and it is a lot even too me, with life, new programs, new movies etc... what are the odds of rewatching some of the lesser titles, so I am going to be taking a close look at it.

Now for being about to afford something, it is very possible that person buying hundreds of films can do so easier then another buying a couple movies a month, just depends on how much free money everyone has.

We may not be as blunt to say it directly to someones face because it is not any of our business (unless they are whining about having no money while they keep blowing it on stuff) what people do with their money.

We can think people have too many clothes, books, nick nacks, movies etc... however appears it is not too much for them as long as it is not hoarder level. I think four thousand movies is beyond pointless (me to) it is near impossible to watch (which is the purpose) that many films ever again, even if you had nothing new to watch. I have not even see half that many films in the last nine years. However it appears that to others it is far from pointless, they choice to have major library of films which is cool in its own right.

I do not care to spend too much, I like to save money thus buying anything when it first comes out is not likely to happen.

And I couldn't dare tell them they spend too much on that!
You can think it though.

You only say something the second they talk about not having any money.

I don't trust "cloud" services to provide what I want when I want it at a "reasonable" price. I'd rather own what I like.
Strongly agree, unless it is a rental type watch I want to own my favorite films is the best quality, never going to trust "cloud" services for films I want to own.

Last edited by Xiroteus; 01-29-12 at 02:18 PM.

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