Brian T

Indeed! Meant to italicize, but hit the wrong button. Fixed now.

Gizmo

I download and strip the DRM from iTunes and stick in Plex. Works well for me, especially on shows and movies that are near impossible to find.

Gizmo

Since we’re on it, what’s the fastest way to check a discs “value”? Is there an app where you can scan a barcode? Typing into eBay is a pain in the ass if you’re looking for some random OOP title magically worth $90

Adam Tyner

If you use the eBay app, it's pretty simple. There's a barcode scanning feature, and after that, I go Filter->Sold Items. (That way you're comparing what buyers actually spent, not just what sellers are asking.)

Brian T

We could almost use a "what'd you get for it?" thread, so folks might be a little more compelled to sell via whatever channels work best for them, rather than wholesale dumping batches in which there might very well be some big-dollar items they weren't aware of.

Alan Smithee

Reminds me I got an extra Song of the South in a lot of free laserdiscs I picked up from someone recently. I could’ve told him about its value but if he didn’t know himself then I figured I could sell it. Will of course keep one copy but even that’s of little use to me as I have a hi-def Blu-ray of it.

Gizmo

Thanks. That’s very helpful. It’s always these dumb titles that are worth a ton of money, not some random release of Jaws.

I’m thinking of just doing genre releases. 10
horror Blu-rays etc. I just got to get rid of these things. Ill keep my favorite 100 or so and just say goodbye to the rest.

stvn1974

E Unit

clckworang

I've been focusing a lot on upgrading old DVDs lately - only when I can get the Blu-ray for pretty cheap. Of course, that leaves me with some DVDs to do something with, not to mention the many Blu-rays that are also on the chopping block. I did a quick scan of a few stacks on Decluttr, just to see how prices are right now. Pretty shocking how many DVDs and Blu-rays it won't take. Also pretty shocking how low the prices are. I know I should go the ebay route for some of mine, but I really don't want the hassle. I might hit up the local FYE, but I imagine the prices will be similar.

Edit to add: I feel I should mention that I'm not expecting to make real money on these, but it's hard to entertain an offer of less than a dollar for a full season set of a show. Or a nickel for a movie. For those prices, might as well give them away.

DJariya

If you can only get $1-2 for a BD and 25 cents for a DVD and maybe $2-3 for a TV season, you're better off just donating them to the library or Goodwill and take a write off. Just not worth the effort. I'm not bringing in a tub of physical media or mailing it out to only get $20-25.

The days of good prices for the after market are long gone.

davidlynchfan

I just bought the Complete Freaks & Geeks series for a buck... at the Salvation Army. DVD version though. Every BD/DVD there is a buck.

DJariya

Today I unloaded a few titles to my local library. I got rid of all my Bourne movies (3-movie box set, singles for Legacy and Jason Bourne). I recently got the 4K box set, so those became expendable. Dumped my Ghostbusters 1-2 pack from years ago. I now have the limited 4K box set that's now sold out. Smallville season 9 DVD. Hawaii Five-O season 3 DVD. My Lionsgate Basic Instinct BD. I now have the 4K set, so I definitely didn't need that anymore.

No regrets. They can either loan them out or sell them to get other things they need.

Brian T

Library donations are nice because you know that if the discs aren’t added to their inventory (which usually seems to be the case) they get sold in regular book sales and the money goes into other products or – in the case of libraries here – any number of special services or programs they offer. The system here has a couple of ‘reference libraries’ that are probably among the biggest in the country, and each has a built-in, volunteer-run ‘Book Ends’ book store where they sell donated stuff for a buck or two to raise funds. Always happy to drop stuff off there.

E Unit

Funny you brought this up. I looked up my local library a few days ago to see if they took donations and that’s exactly what they do with media. If it doesn’t end up in the library collection, they will sell them. So that may be where the rest of my media I’m not keeping will be going.

TomOpus

I need to ask my library about DVD donations. They had received a large money donation from a local wealthy family and bought movies including a bunch of Criterions. I'm not sure if they're in need of more movies.

orangerunner

I have a lot of DVDs which I bought the Blu-ray of as well but I have a difficult time letting go of the DVD for the following reasons:

-the DVD often has much nicer packaging, booklets etc.
-the DVD has certain extras that were never ported-over to Blu-ray
-fear (probably irrational) that the Blu-ray will fail and I'll have no back-up

If a Blu-ray title begins to sell for a lot of money and it's what I consider a marginal title, I'd rather sell the Blu-ray and keep the DVD. I sold "Bedazzled" on Blu-ray for $60. I'm perfectly happy with my $1 DVD version of this particular title.

E Unit

I’m happy with the digital of pretty much any title. Hence the massive sell off.

zyzzle

That's true enough, if we stick to the letter of the law. However, I was more so making the potent point that the physical media should be yours for *private use* (ie, your own use) for perpetuiity. The studio's never going to suddenly raid your home and confiscate these physical media discs of cult titles which you've wisely chosen to purchase -- in physical, as opposed to streaming form. But, the Studio Gods can, and will yank a title you've streamed / downloaded (riddled with DRM, as Standard Operating Procedure) if a licensing issue comes up, a copyright issue, a lawsuit, or George Lucas or Disney, or some other egotistical asshole tinkerer says you should no longer be able to watch / screen that film. With the physical disc in your possession, the right to watch the film for private use will always be yours.

morriscroy

In an absolute sense, this is only really true for dvd and formats which don't have any drm / copyprotection.

This is not entirely true for bluray/4Kbluray.

In principle, the evil movie companies can make a disc and/or send out a firmware update to revoke any and all bluray player encryption keys (both standalone and software). Effectively turning players into bricks.

Even if it is not intentional, bluray players can be accidentally "bricked" by incompetent data/firmware/etc .... updates, such as what happened to Samsung manufactered bluray players (after Samsung had already exited the market for standalone bluray players) back in 2020.

https://forum.dvdtalk.com/dvd-home-t...worldwide.html

Brian T

Wow – never knew about that. Also, never owned a Samsung player and, entirely unwittingly, never connected a Blu-ray player to the internet, or needed to. And if performing either of those actions ever resulted in a 'bricked' player as discussed in that thread, well, there are other brands out there . . .


I like knowing – at least for a while – that discs (and books, of course) donated to the library have a chance of being enjoyed by others, either as sign-outs from the library itself of dollar pick-ups in a book sale. I'm sure even libraries get stuck with stuff nobody wants which ends up in the trash (or maybe they donate them to charity shops?), but I've seen even dreadfully common stuff on the sale table on the first day of a sale, and most of it's gone by the second day. Up here, charity shops – Goodwill, Sally Ann, Value Village/Savers (although the latter isn't really a charity shop) – probably get more disc donations in general based on what I see on their shelves, but I'm sure they have time limits for anything occupying space on their shelves. After all, is anyone really looking to add romcoms, Martin Lawrence movies and workout videos from the 00's to their collections nowadays, even at $3 or $4 a pop? Still, even these places at least represent the possibility of extending the life of old discs.

orangerunner

I suppose a corporate "Dr. Evil" could theoretically create a firmware upgrade and transform all web-enabled Blu-ray players to out-put nothing higher than 480p! Not that it would happen but the idea it could happen is rather scary.

ViewAskewbian

My issue with streaming right now stems from my complitionist nature. Now that there are MCU and Star Wars shoes not being released on physical media, it urks me as I don't have Disney + but, more so, because I want them next to the films on my shelf.

Bluelitespecial

I've looked through my collection to see if there's any movies I could try and sell recently. I have the very rare History of Beavis and Butthead dvd set and I've seen listings on ebay as high as $650. I don't watch it anymore and the very early episodes on it are very bad. I was thinking of listing it on Ebay with a starting bid of $100.

kd5

That same thing pisses me off with Stranger Things and The Expanse.