dino88

I decided around the 2000 mark that I'd finally watch one of the dvds and that's when I remembered I hate movies.

BuckNaked2k

Yes, indeed! I will wind up with about 2-3 2010 releases, and about that same number for 2009, 2008, 2007...

I buy mostly catalog titles on Blu-ray, and have upgraded a significant portion of my collection, although it seems catalog releases has slowed down a bit, and some of my DVDs may never receive a release on Blu.

DVDKrayzie

I had thousands of DVDs and well over 1000 Blu-Rays (even few hundred HD DVDs). It got to a point where I literally had an entire room im my house COMPLETELY covered wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling and the closet completely stuffed with them. And even sadder, more than half were still sealed.

I enjoy movies and my friends would all think I was completely nuts and I'd justify it saying it's my "entertainment" until one day my friend pointed out I could sell all this stuff, pay $20/month for Netflix (I actually do the 1 disc Netflix and 3 disc Blockbuster plans and still can't possibly watch enough to fully utilize them), still watch all the movies I want, have another room in my house and buy a brand new Corvette. And that's exaclty what I did. And he was right, driving a Corvette is a hell of a lot more fun then staring at a bunch of alphabatized spines everyday.

Now if I was a millionaire, I'd love to have both, but I'm just a regular working dude in my twenties so I had to make a choice.

Looking back, I don't even know what the hell I was thinking. I mean how can one possibly watch all that stuff? You could never leave the house for a year straight and not watch it all. I really don't understand how people can watch them and then watch again with the commentary and then all the extras, etc. on top of all that. i don't think I've ever watched a single "extra" on ANY of the discs I owned. Where the hell is the time? between work and any other activity you may enjoy it just seems impossible

JimRochester

Since I was buying mostly $10 used I was investing about $50 week. But even that is $250 month which is a car payment, or half of a nice car payment. Now for $15 month I have the 2 at a time BB and generally add more to my my queue than I watch. For a while Ithought I would outsmart the man by burning my own. When I filled up my fourth binder I looked through to see what I could clean out and decided I could toss out 90% and not miss them. Glad I didn't keep buying. Even now I add a few per year and as I add some I go to the inventory and clean it out even more.

Anubis2005X

Wow, that's a pretty fascinating read. Even if you're not a millionaire, you must do pretty well for yourself if you can afford that many discs and trade it in for a Corvette. Glad to hear you were able to overcome "the sickness."

Yavin

The collecting mentality had gotten the best of me over the past few years: movies, video games, film-related collectibles. At some point, you realize that the things you are collecting are not being enjoyed the way they were meant to me.

So rather than continue buying for the sake of collecting, I decided to try and enjoy the films I already had and cut back to purchases that were films that I know I would want to watch and re-watch and that were at as good a price as I thought they would ever be. If it's a film that I can live without or one that is not quite at that sweet spot of a price then I won't buy it.

DVDKrayzie

Well it wasn't THAT simple. The sickness also extended to video games. I had probably about 1000 games from now (360,PS3,Wii) to about the N64 era. All complete and in great condition because I was really anal about everything when "collecting all this stuff.

One day I just put the ENTIRE thing on craigslist to see what kind of offers I'd get because I figured Ebay would have been a nightmare. I actually got really lucky and got a response that same day from a guy in the Bay area who was about to open up a used DVD/Video game store. He came up with a truck and bought the whole thing that night.

I also traded in my car. I hated that car, it was the most boring car in the world to me so I was glad to get rid of it even though I know a lot of people like them for some reason--it just wasn't for me (Acura TL).

So after everything, I had to come out of pocket about 4 grand and bought the thing "cash." And now it's like I'm saving money cause I don't spend $200-$300 a week on Amazon on movies and games. I still buy a ton of CDs but those are pretty cheap and rent most games but buy the occasional game and then sell it as soon as i'm done with it.

islandclaws

I began realizing that owning a mammoth collection was weighing me down. It's a bitch to move, it takes up way too much space and I don't even rewatch many of the titles I own. I recently sold off a good 100 or so titles, but I'm planning to go back and pull out even more to trade in soon. I already get most of what I want for free (I write reviews for a site) and the titles I do want I just wait until there's a major sale on them since it seems like everything eventually hits a sub-$15 price point. I don't even buy DVDs anymore, just Blu-rays.

It started to feel like my collection owned me, and that's not how it should be. I've stopped blind buying (except for rare exceptions) and I only buy what I know I'm actually going to watch again. A friend of mine recently showed me a media center his roommate built which has thousands of titles stored on 3tB hard drive space. I'm starting to think maybe I should just have him make one for me and sell of my discs. I rarely even watch bonus features as it is.

DJariya

I'm not going to say that I woke up one day and had some magical epiphany that I should cut back. I will say these are the factors:

1) Bills= I have a car payment and other bills, so I can't afford to spend $50-100 a week on DVD's or Blu-Rays. And I don't want to put myself in unnecessary debt to support a hobby.

2) Prices= The Prices aren't as appealing as they were in the past. In the past, we would see 2-disc or 1-disc special edition DVD's go on sale for $13.99-14.99 each week, now the prices are in the $17.99-$24.99 range. Buying new releases isn't as appealing anymore. I know BR's have gone down in price alot and I barely have 100 of them, so I can't really comment on that. I have more patience to wait for stuff I really want to get discounted. I have 8 of the 9 seasons of Smallville on DVD and that's one of my favorite shows of all time, but I'm holding out until season 9 drops under $20 as I just don't need it right now.

3) Plenty of other entertainment medium= I subscribe to Directv, have 2 HD DVR's, I also have a Netflix account and an Xbox 360 with plenty of video games. Occassionally I will go to the theatre and see a new movie. Plus, the Fall TV season has plenty of things to watch and even now there is original shows on in the summer. With the large amount of DVD's and BR's I own and other entertainment medium I already have, I have plenty of stuff to keep me entertained for years.

4) Time= There simply isn't enough time in the day to enjoy all my DVD's and BR's and keep up with my other responsibilities. I work over 40+ hours a week and barely have a couple of hours a day not counting my days off to relax and enjoy my entertainment medium.

coli

When I first bought a DVD player in 1998, I bought hundreds of DVD's. What I realized over the years is that even if the movie is good or great, it may not have rewatchablilty.

So I only buy BluRay movies now that I truly will watch over and over. So once all the great movies are out on BluRay, I will probably end up with about 50 in my collection, compared to probably 500-600 I once had in my DVD collection.

Iron_Giant

1. Nothing new that I really want to buy.
-Love new stuff on BR, but not a bunch of new stuff I want to buy. (Toy story 3 I will pick up)
2. I have most of "Classic" movies on DVD/BR already
3. My kids have grown up (19 and 16), so I am no longer picking up a bunch of kids movies (Through I just picked up "B and the Beast", which is NOT just a kids movie. Loved the BR quality.)
4. Money to some degree, but I will figure out how to buy what I want (Smallville S9 is the only one I do not have yet)
5. Space will be an issue in a year or two

My love for movies have not gone down, but Hollywood is not putting out great movies I want to buy.

I am picking up about 15-20 BRs a year now, have not picked up a DVD for about 2 years. And I will not purchase another DVD, I am part of the reason for the downfall of the sales of DVDs.

JimRochester

^ what he said

Trevor

I can't even begin to understand this. For every good film released on BD, there are 100 released on DVD only. Why limit yourselves to such a small percentage of films just because of the format it is on?

My DVDs play and look great on my BD player.

Artman

For me here's nothing I need to have or can't wait for that's only on DVD. On top of that it's just the quality of the presentation over quantity for me... I don't say that to be stuck up or anything, it's a pretty common principle - fewer but nicer things.

The vast majority of people do not watch a movie a day, so a collection of a few hundred is not a small percentage of films for most.

Iron_Giant

May be true, but I own about 375 DVDs, so I have about everything I want there. I Love the BR Quality, so I can wait for anything I have missed on DVD.

And, I refuse to buy anyting new on DVD, BR is the only way to go.

Hoping to pick up "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", "The Africa Queen" and "The Maltese Falcon" on BR, I read that the B&W PQ is out of this world.

Boba Fett

Unless a film is visually stunning, if I can get the DVD for $2.50-$5 used, I'll go that route over a $15-$25 Blu-Ray any day.

Ahab

Yea, I agree.
As you say, there are still very many movies and tv shows out there that are only on dvd. I'm not going to refuse to buy those I want to watch simply because I have a blu ray player.

CRM114

I have everything I want.

Blu-ray prices are too high so my transition into that medium is very slow.

Drake

I think you are speaking to an audience obviously that are into contemporary films and most likely don't collect movies from the Golden era of Hollywood.

I could not part with any of the classic movies and all the Noir movies I have in my collection just because they are on DVD.....that's just whacked out.

Damed

Having 2 kids + working 50 to 60 hours a week = no time or money for it.

sauce07

I just spent $450 on shelving, spent hours putting them together and installing them onto a wall. I started putting my collect up and only got through half. That's why i've slowed down.

JimRochester

I didn't say i don't watch other things. I said I don't collect them. I still have over 900 discs in my collection plus a BB online account. Trust me I don't often sit complaining I have nothing to watch.

I have just given up owning hundreds of titles just for the sake of owning them. I no longer have the cash, the room, or the interest in plunking titles on the shelf to look awesome when people come over.

The titles I add are the ones I have seen the movie and know I will watch at least once a year. Any less than that and I'll rent. I'll buy a few special titles as they are released or if a great deal comes down the pike on some used ones I'll grab them. Then I put a few on my B'day and Christmas lists. My wife and in-laws never know what to get me so that makes it easy.

The kids are grown so the multitude of kids movies I used to buy are no longer a priority. If it looks good I'll rent it. I have several hundred family friendly movies for when kids happen to be around or someone wants to watch an old favorite.

BuckNaked2k

You mean even now, in 2010? If you think there are a 100 new titles released on DVD for every new Blu-ray, you must be focusing on some very narrowly-focused niches like anime, foreign, grindhouse/slasher, or silent-era.

lyco

I used to have a shelf full of dvds. After a while I realised I don't ever watch them again. So I stopped.

Trevor

The only point of my post was responding to this comment: You didn't make it, but indicated you agreed.

All the stuff in your above post, and several of the recent posts responding to me are valid points that I may agree with, but none of them really address my only point.

Even today, the number of BD releases pales to the number of DVD releases, many of which will likely never get released on BD. I'm as "mainstream joe sixpack PS3 consumer" as all of you I imagine, but there are still tons of DVD only releases every week.