Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

(Sorry if this is in the wrong subforum, or addressed before.)
I have finally gotten enough media cases (think tall shallow bookcases) to display my collection in one place, and I am looking for suggestions on how to organize my titles. I have about 1500 blu and dvds, fairly eclectic, everything from silent classics to the latest superhero blockbuster, with a pretty generous selection of Criterions. I was thinking I would mostly organize by genre and subgenre, with special categories, perhaps by director, set aside for truly exemplary titles. For instance, I would have a section for Sci Fi, probably broken down by decade of release--But then a title like Kubrick's 2001 might go in an altogether separate section with other films of his spanning various genres. Foreign films might go by country, or perhaps only art films by country--Bicycle Thief might go under Italian, but Planet of the Vampires would go under Sci Fi. TV offerings might all go in a TV section--but then where would Band of Brothers or Decalog go? So yes I am thoroughly undecided. So what do fellow members do? Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

I havent gotten mine organized yet but when I do, I plan something like this.

1) Standard movies : Alphabetically
2) Disney movies section -Classic aninmation - All the rest
3) Criterion section
4) Japanese Anime section
5) Perhaps an animated section with any American animation that isnt Disney
6) TV on DVD


I could break out war movies or horror or western but I think I will just leave them all together with the standard movies and just alphabetical. There are really so many way you could go. Just do what will work best for you.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

As far as my movies go (we won't go into books, games or cds)...I have currently three media cabinets for my movies. I would say I'm about the 1000 range. I have two large spinners which hold my blu-rays and dvds and then a third more normal type bookshelf which holds most of my television season dvds (since those take up a lot of space on their own).

All of my stuff is format first, so the blu's are together, and the dvds are together and then alphabetical. There are only a few exceptions to that, for example Planet of the Apes, I have every single movie on blu (except 2001 which I have on dvd) under P regardless if its Dawn, Rise, or just a damned dirty ape in order by release date. Same thing with the Mad Maxes even though the second one is Road Warrior. Also, I have all of my Bond stuff (Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, Daniel Craig only) off by itself.

I have a good amount of Twilight Time blus and Criterion blus and have thought about grouping them together but at the end of the day, alphabetical has always worked for me.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Most of my stuff is alphabetical by title with series together in release order. With a few exceptions:
- TV is in its own section, alphabetical by title then numerically by season.
- James Bond is organized in release order
- Music videos/films are alphabetical by title/artist
- Foreign language films are alphabetical by title (this may change soon)
- Porn is organized by title.

Blue rays and dvds are mixed together. The largest group is the regular section, followed by the TV section. The rest are pretty small and take up about half a shelf each.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

With that many titles I find the only way to go is just A-Z. I keep the number titles (300, 2001, 25th Hour) at the beginning before the "A's" for ease of finding them. I don't want to think about 25th Hour being sorted as "TW".

The only separation I do is with movies I haven't seen yet. I keep those in their own A-Z so I don't lose track of them. I have some 10-year plus old blind buys I still haven't watched. TV and concert discs also get their own sections.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

I have a collection of about 1500 DVDs, 400 Blu-rays and 300 HD-DVDs.

All are movies, no TV shows.

I separate the three formats, esthetically they look better.

I usually associate a film by the studio, so I separate them by studio ie. Warner Home Video, New Line Home Video, Paramount etc.

I don't bother alphabetizing but I generally put the Universal Home Video horror movies together, Stanley Kubrick Warner Bros titles together and so on.

I find if you keep it too organized the whole shelving unit has to be shuffled every time you add a new title.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Yep, that's how I do it. And the box sets sit above the bookcases. It's how they are arranged at Film Aficionado...makes it much easier to keep track of what you own. I may be switching to a pair of spinners that hold 1000 titles each

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

You could always ask Alan Smithee for advice....what, c'mon folks quit looking at me like that.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

So you have to memorize what studio released every movie you own? What do you do when a movie changes hands from one studio to another?

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Trust me, you have to alphabetize a collection that large from A to Z. There is simply no other way. The only things I break out from that categorization are a couple of very distinct genres - anime and music concerts.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Absolutely agree with the first sentence. However, I sort my numbered titles the opposite way. They all get filed alphabetically based on the spelling of the number. This way I don't have to think about whether a title has the number spelled out or numerically (most of the time I cant remember anyway), as they are all spelled out in my collection.

Completely agree with this statement.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

I have around 3000 BDs and I organize by whatever studio released that BD. Easy as can be. Putting in ABC order is a headache, especially if you are adding a lot of media every week.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Breaking down by genre can get into hair-splitting territory. I know I hate shopping in stores like Best Buy that try to separate movies by genre, because it's apparently chosen by whoever was stocking the shelves that day.


I have my Criterion Collection and Fox Studio Classic sections separated since they have numbered spines, and then I have all my anime separate but all the rest is A-Z and numbered titles get sorted by how the number is spelled out (two thousand one: a space odyssey).

Aside from something like Criterion, I can't imagine how you'd keep your movies straight separating by studio. Like Josh says, what about when a studio buys another's catalog? What if a franchise jumped around to different studios?

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

For me, the title of the movie and its studio and/or video distributor just go hand-in-hand. It's not "work" to memorize them.

Sometimes it does get tricky, especially when some titles are MGM or MGM/Fox
or MGM/Fox/Sony, which happened for a while.

It just looks a little more uniform when you have the all of the titles from the same studio lined up as they often used the same layout template when they designed the covers.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

It's not rocket science. It all goes by distributor, not producer. If it says Disney on the side it goes with Disney. If it says Universal it goes on my Universal shelf. Doesn't matter who's bumper appears before the film. Also helps uniformity because the spines tend to match.

I have the big Star Wars box set on the Fox shelf, Clone Wars S1-5 on the WB shelf with the CW movie, and Rebels/Force Awakens/CW: Lost Episodes on the Disney shelf.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Yeah, see, that's heresy.


Seriously, that would horribly confusing for not only myself, but for anybody visiting or especially my family members looking for something to watch.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

:lol:

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

In the end, the best solution is to use whatever works for you. I couldn't possibly arrange my collection by distributor and still be able to find anything, but it works for some people. My collection is organized like jjcool's collection above: movie DVDs in one section, TV show DVDS in another, and Blu-rays in another, each section alphabetized, with numbers that start titles alphabetized as if they were spelled out.

That's just the way my mind works; yours may work differently, and you should follow your own internal sense of logic when setting up your collection. I've got somewhere around 5,000 discs and use the organizational pattern I outlined above; a good friend has probably 8,000 discs and groups his by genre. To each his own, with nothing being wrong.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

ABC easy as 123. Nough said.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

I have close to 3,000 discs. I separate the HD media and the DVDs and then just go alphabetical, with numbers being filed as they are spelled. Larger boxsets are placed on the taller shelves above the main collection. The only genre I sort of have separated are music and concert discs, but even that isn't uniform across my collection. There are some concert films in the main collection. Also, comedians or director boxsets are typically filed according to the last name. A Martin Scorsese collection would go under S.

I've thought about doing the genre thing and have had friends tell me I should do that, but there are just too many titles that I find too difficult to classify because they straddle more than one genre.

Yes, it can sometimes be a pain in the butt to shift all those discs when you get a big order, but I find it's a small price for being able to quickly find a title. Also, I would think that any organizational method will be prone to these kinds of shifts as space becomes more of a premium b

I have also considered separating by distributors I tend to collect (Criterion, Scream Factory, Arrow, Blue Underground), but in the end, I've always felt the distributor was much less important than the title and that it would potentially make it very difficult for others to find titles within my collection. After all, most people aren't as familiar with those distributors as we are.

But my advice would be to just do whatever makes the most sense to you since you will be the one maintaining it and picking from it the most.

I will say that whatever method you use, be prepared to still sometimes have problems finding something! With collections as big as many of ours, if a friend looks at a movie and then places it in the wrong alphabetical spot, it can sometimes be hard to locate. I imagine that could become even more difficult if your organizational methods are more personalized.

Regardless of what you decide, good luck and be ready to spend a lot of time on this. It takes a long time to get a collection that size all into place.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

DVDProfiler says I've got 1300 titles but some are box sets/collections.
Almost everything is on two big shelves (a couple exceptions due to crazy packaging - Batman original and TAS, Pink Panther, Home Movies collection).
Straight alphabetical except where it makes sense (all "Star Wars" in S, Woody Allen box sets in W, (no, not A).
Numbers are before A.
Any deeper categorization would mean I'd have rearrange every single thing whenever I got a new title. This method makes the most sense to me and makes it easiest to find stuff.

What's your purpose - look cool on shelves, or be able to find stuff? Organize based on your need/intent.

Books - hah. A bookcase in my bedroom, 3 in the attic, 2 in the garage, and 12 boxes of books in the garage (from last year's booksale). Absolutely no order except in the attic - my few author-collections are (mostly) all together.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

The way you organize the titles in your movie collection is, by nature, highly personal. I don't think there's any one perfect way to do it. I try to keep my own collection organized as well as possible in a manner that makes sense to me, but trying to explain that system to anyone else will surely be puzzling.

For example, my collection is broken down by:

DVD

Those that came in standard keepcases go in Discsox sleeves in a bin.

Box sets and special packaging go on the shelf, further divided by:
- Movies
- TV shows
- Anime

Blu-ray & HD DVD (co-mingled)


Most discs that came in standard keepcases go in Discsox sleeves in a trunk. These are divided by:
- Discs I've watched
- Discs I haven't watched, but I have seen the movie before

My movie shelves have separate sections for:
- Box sets and oversized packaging
- Franchises and movie series
- SteelBooks
- Digibooks
- Criterion Collection
- Twilight Time
- Warner Archive
- 3D (if not part of another previous category)
- TV shows
- Blind-buy titles I haven't gotten around to watching

The Steelbook section has further subdivisions for: James Bond, Disney/Pixar, and Marvel.

Like several other people in this thread, I alphabetize movie titles that begin with a number by the phonetic spelling of that number, e.g. "Twenty Eight Days Later," "Two Thousand One," etc.

I also make special exemptions to the alphabetization for movies that are part of a franchise or series. Those get arranged chronologically. For example, all the Batman and Dark Knight movies are lumped together under "B" for Batman. In DVDProfiler, I have them listed as Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Begins, Batman: The Dark Knight, and Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.

I haven't decided what to do with Batman v. Superman yet since it's technically a follow-up to Man of Steel, which is not in that section.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

See, that heresy to me! No one touches my BDs! :lol:

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

I like your Idea, Josh Z, of putting all your 3D titles together in one section. Don't know why I hadn't done that before. I often have friends want to watch something in 3D, and I just have to scan through the collection to find some suggestions. If I get industrious enough this weekend, I just might reorganize.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Nobody's brought up double features. I keep them separate, alphabetized by first title on spine.
I keep DVDs that are available on BD on separate shelf. When I get around to buying the BD I pull that title. When a BD gets announced I pull the DVD from collection and put it on "available on BD" shelf.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Organize them by disc manufacturer and authoring house :) No, I don't really do that.

I separate regular DVDs, HD-DVDs, and Blu-rays- if it's one of those stupid BD/DVD combos, it goes with the BDs since only a BD player can play BOTH discs in it. I've been separating the non region-1 and/or PAL DVDs from the rest, but given how most of my players don't care about that I'm wondering if I should keep doing that. I have a Japanese import of Jurassic Park III that's separate from the US edition of The Lost World for that reason. I don't separate BDs by region since I have only one BD player, and at least those give you a "wrong region" message from the disc itself if it's set to the wrong one.

After I move and have a large wall of shelves, the bottom shelf will have the Bond films and the porn.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Feature films and TV are A-Z with the following exceptions (which are stored in their respective alphabetical location, e.g. James Bond goes in the J section):
- James Bond grouped chronologically
- Series/sequels collected together, either in release order or series order
- Stanley Kubrick grouped chronologically (not sure why he's the only director I do this for)
- Titles starting with numbers go alphabetical based on the spelling of the numbers
- Disney Treasures tins in their own alphabetical section, mainly because they're so big

Now that I have 2 small kids, children and family films/TV have been broken out into a separate section (at the wife's request), arranged according to the above rules.

Music-related releases (mostly concerts, documentaries, or music video collections) are in a separate section, alphabetical by artist name.

I also have a specialty release section, which is mostly demo discs (DTS, THX, Dolby, etc.) or other promotional (BMW The Hire, magazine inserts) or misc. releases (calibration discs).

Some large/odd-sized box sets are stored separately in a closet.

All sections are intermixed DVD and BD.
Laserdiscs are stored separately near the vinyl. Since I have only about 2 dozen LD's now, it's straight A-Z.
About 6 or 7 VHS are stored haphazardly on top of the spinner shelves, mainly waiting for me to digitize them and then put them in storage.

Those multiple-feature collections (of non-series films) would drive me crazy trying to slot them, so I don't think I own a single one of them.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

This poses an interesting conundrum. What if you have The Matrix as a standalone disc, followed by the double-feature of Matrix Reloaded/Matrix Revolutions? Do you still keep the double-feature separate, or do you keep the whole franchise together?

I don't segregate double-features from the rest of my discs. However, if it's a case where I bought a double-feature really only to get one movie and don't care about the other, I'll alphabetize it by the movie I care about most, regardless of which way they're labeled on the spine or artwork.

For example, the double-feature of Hollywood Homicide and Hudson Hawk (don't judge me!) prioritizes Hollywood Homicide on the cover, but I alphabetize it by Hudson Hawk.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Like most people it sounds like, I alphabetize my collection (for the most part). All my BDs in standard cases are alphabetized on a single media tower (about 400 or so). I have separate towers for my special edition BDs (Franchise box sets, bigger thicker BDs like the Taxi Driver one for example), but they are not alphabetized. Same with TV, not alphabetized, just keep each show together with the seasons in order. I also prefer to double dip on shows once the series has ended and a complete series box set is available. Makes organizing alot easier.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Well, that is certainly true, I own about 1600, but to avoid a full shift of my collection everytime I buy new ones, I keep 'em loose and reserve a few open spaces at the bottom. However, shifting the titles is inevitable every once in awhile. This fall I am probably investing in 2-3 spinners with an individual capacity of 1000 that should be good for awhile. I'm debating because I can't see myself reaching 3000—but I said that at 1000 too!

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

I put everything in binders now. I have two HUGE binders for regular movies, and then two smaller binders. One for kid/animated movies and the other for 3D discs. I find it easier to flip through a binder to try and find something we want to watch. The only movies I have on the shelf now (other than my steelbook collection) are ones that we haven't watched yet, which is still a lot, and usually the ones we hit up first.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Yeah, it will get to the point where owning a large collection is simply ridiculous to shelve. The discsox approach is where I may go rather than buying the spinners or putting them in binders. They safely store the discs vertically and the inserts are not damaged. You simpy get a file drawer system. One collector had some custom made to accommodate his huge 6000 disc collection. There are some pretty good videos on Youtube demonstrating how some manage their collections

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

I started putting stuff in binders but I hated it. I admit it: I haven't been buying DVDs just to have the programs on them but also as a hobby. I like having the boxes and cases on my shelf. Seeing something like my MST3K collection on the shelf makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger, like I'm helping to make sure a piece of cultural history is archived.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

There is definitely something to be said for seeing a large collection displayed on a shelf. It loses some of its "impressiveness" when it is put in a binder. That being said, space is always an issue. Years agao I put all my dvds in slim cases and printed up artwork for them. I was able to reclaim about 50% of the shelf space that the collection was taking up. Also, to anyone that has mentioned having to shift an alphabetized collection when you get a new title, one way to avoid that is to build in space. My shelves I leave a good foot or so space at the end of each shelf. My cds right now are in a spinner tower and I left a few spaces after each letter, and a few in the middle of some of the more common letters (like M and S). I used to have my cds in binders and I would leave an empty page between letters, as well as 1 or 2 empty spaces per page to try and cut down on the shifting. Not really an economical use of space, but alot better than having to shift a few hundred discs to fit one in. Of course, eventually you do need to shift stuff around, but leaving spaces pushes that off for a bit.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Yesterday, I was checking out at the Best Buy location near ASU and there was a couple rifling through the $5.99 dump bin as I stood by waiting to dive in myself. As I was looking through after they were done denting up all the inserts, the male part of the equation said to me "..nobody buys movies anymore!" I then looked up at him and said, "I enjoy collecting and don't have to pay monthly charges for cable, Hulu and Netflix every month regardless of whether I watch anything...and what I buy I own .. retains most of its value unlike subscriptions where your investment is gone for good." They both turned their backs and proceeded to the register.

I then stopped by one of the locations of Zia Record Exchange here in the Phoenx metro area. I found two minty steelbooks: "The Fly (1958)" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)." They are both region free UK editions. I paid about $12 for each of them after discounts. I also grabbed a copy of "The Great Mouse Detective," "Bone Tomahawk," "Hitchcock," and "American Beauty" ...all with well preserved slipcovers. My hands were trembling from the joy! Yeah, it's part hobby and part addiction, but also brings me a helluva lot of pleasure and I don't apologize for doing what I enjoy (when it's legal).

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Yeah, I'm basically out of space right now, I'm hoping to start digging through some of the old blind buys and see if A) they hold up on my 60" screen since many are older DVDs, and B) even if they still look good, do we still want them?

And I have done what I can to put some DVDs in slim cases, but a lot of my titles seem to have fonts that take the full width of the spine and wouldn't look right in a smaller case.

I also do what I can to combine some titles, I'll get multi disc cases and combine sequels or re-issues with exclusive extras all into one package. Like I was able to use multi disc cases to combine the discs from the Toy Story Ultimate Toy Box plus the two 2-disc DTS reissues so they all fit in the Toy Box case.


As for adding new ones to the shelf, I do what I can to leave a little space on the shelf for new ones, especially when I know for sure I'll be adding new ones (like the MST3K sets)

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

In a way, I like hearing people say "Nobody buys movies!" because that whole attitude is the reason I have been able to amass a huge collection of DVDs for about $.50-$2.00 each. At the height of their popularity, DVDs were just too expensive and I had to pick-and-choose my absolute favorites.

Nowadays they cost less than a chocolate bar.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

I can relate as I like the collecting aspect probably more than actually watching the movies.

I was at an impressionable age (8 or 9 years old) when video stores really began popping-up on every block. Most video stores only had maybe one or two copies of a movie and they always had that little plastic clip on the box with the red sticker "Rented".

Back then, you never got pissed-off but just accepted it for what it was and went back to the store again and again until you timed it right and got it.

Many times my brother & I would just walk into the video to "look" and we'd kill twenty minutes or so just looking at the VHS boxes on the shelf, studying the artwork and reading the descriptions.

That's probably why, to me, seeing people just discard DVDs with the trash is sad to see but it also results in being able amass a huge collection for cheap.

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Yeah, they've reached a point where some aren't even worth the time for people to sell used. In the basement/trash room of our condo building there's a table for people to put things they don't want anymore that are still usable. Usually clothes and kitchen stuff but quite often I find DVDs and video games. Usually shovelware but an occasional gem and sometimes I'll just grab them to use the cases.

Re: Help with Organizing Collection for Display
 

Nobody goes to Best Buy anymore either. ;)