E Unit

Yep, it’s that time. While I am not unloading everything - in fact, I’m probably keeping just about all my 4Ks, collectors editions/box sets, and Criterion and boutique labels. But I am finally getting rid of those DVD’s and catalog titles. I’ve sold some on eBay, but an getting rid of a pretty big chunk of my discs. I’ve sold small amounts on local NextDoor and Facebook groups, some to hospitals, and some to nursing homes. For me personally, I’m doing this due to our move.

But anyone else? Just getting rid of older physical media, I was just wondering what you've done to get rid of your media, and what’s your reason for doing so? Besides space of course.

Adam Tyner

I’ve set aside hundreds upon hundreds of titles, and my only real idea is to dump them on eBay. I sold a big plastic bin of movies (mostly horror, mostly Blu-ray) to Orbit DVD a couple years ago, but I guess I like the idea of torturing myself as an eBay seller more. The other avenues seem to be things like Decluttr or straight-up donations, where I’m generally making anywhere from $0.00 to $0.10 a title. I haven’t actually sold anything on eBay yet, but I have all my shipping stuff, a thermal printer, and all that ready to go.

My motivation really is just space. I have zero interest in being a movie hoarder, and I’m pretty committed to limiting myself to my current media storage. I'm trying to be a little more thoughtful about what I buy too, especially since putting something on the shelf means I'm taking something else off.

Mike86

I buy way less than I used to. Also I have dumped unwanted titles at the local Salvation Army and Goodwill. I have to really want something or it needs to be cheap for me to purchase.

DJariya

FYE was my go-to place to sell any movies I didn't need. But, the closest store near me shut down during the pandemic.

I did manage to sell off about 20-25% of my collection at Book Off when they opened a location near me a few years ago. I think I made about $400-500 or so. But now the prices they pay are terrible. $1-2 at most for BDs and maybe 25 cents for DVDs. I'm not going to drive there to sell off 20-30 copies to get less than $10. That's just not worth it.

I don't do Ebay, Facebook groups or other online buy back dealers. Just a hassle to do it.

So 9 times out of 10, I will just donate any physical media I don't need to my local library and take a tax write off.

TheMovieman

I've already purged my collection, selling maybe less than half on ebay while hundreds I've donated that weren't worth the time or effort to list. Only have some Criterions that I want to get rid of but unfortunately with those damn half off sales, those are barely worth anything

All told, think I donated or sold maybe 1,000 movies and TV sets. And that barely made a dent in my collection.

L. Ron zyzzle

I think Smithee started a thread on this 8-years ago.

But yeah. Pared down my collection around 2017. I still buy physical if I want the assurance that streaming rights won't take my digital stuff away, but when I do get physical copies I usually discard everything but the disc. I'm less inclined to collect overall and find HBO Max does pretty well for me overall.
ETA: Mostly donations or Ebay. Ebay was kind of fun.

zyzzle

In my opinion, dumping your physical media collection right now would be a very foolish thing to do. At this point, the pinnacle of the format has been reached. Many of these titles will never be released again in such high quality. Doing a massive dump wouldn't be wise, because there's probably never going to be a "better" version of 90% of the cult titles which now exist in Blu-ray, for example. Streaming doesn't count, and it's a red herring, an evil temptress... The quality of streaming will never approach that of a maxed-out birate Blu-ray which fills 25 or 30 GB of disc space, with an average bitrate of 40 mbps. The bar is so low for streaming that you'd be lucky to get a 10 mbps average birate on that very same cult title, *if* it ever comes to streaming.

So, throwing away your physical media would be folly for that reason alone. Not to mention it's also folly because you *actually own the content* in physical media; companies can never take it away from you; it's yours to do with as you wish, to keep and preserve. The longevity of pressed media is very high, probably 30 to 50 years, at least. Try finding a copy of STANLEY from 1972 to stream in 50 years! That hokey, cult film was just released in physical media by the excellent company Vinegar Syndrome. The film consumes 33 Gb of space, and the transfer is so good it looks like it has been preserved in a mint-state for the last 50 years. Good luck in future decades, if you want to see it and don't own the Blu-ray now. You'll need to fork over hundreds of dollars for it, for the wise people who 'stockpile' cult titles now will be selling them at outrageous rates in the future when the titles are long OOP and in the hands of greedy scalpers. This has happened in the retro-computing industry during the last 5 years or so. Prices has spiked 5 to 10x because of hoarding, scalping greed, and artificial scarcity.

OldBoy

I dumped all my DVDs awhile back. Now, my Blus are a little irritating. I’d rather everything be streaming and I loathe when I have to find my physical disc.

TheMovieman

In response to zyzzle, what I've gotten rid of were movies I would never watch again (like Movie 43 as an example) and keeping anything I might want to re-watch. I'm still a big proponent of physical media as, you pointed out, some movies might not be available via streaming and others that are might be removed later given all of these corporate mergers. I also like glancing at my collection and just randomly choosing a movie to watch. OTOH, my collection is so large, 13k+, that I can get very overwhelmed of what to choose. I even have a stack of to-watch/re-watch that even there I stand deciding what to watch.

TGM

I got rid of the CD and bluray/dvd cases a decade ago. Now I have everything in dusty binders in my basement. I am likely never inclined to go hunting for anything ever again, and enjoy the convenience of 2500 and counting digital movies/shows on vudu/ma and countless others on Netflix, D+, P+, etc.

Mike86

What I have of my collection at my apartment is well organized. So if I want something I don’t have to hunt for it and just pick it off my shelf. I will acknowledge though that streaming is just a lot easier in most cases.

That’s why I’ve just become very selective anymore about what new gets added. It’s got to be a movie or show I really like a lot or it’s got to be cheap enough, but even cheap blind or impulsive buys have lessened a lot.

DJariya

I think for most here, space and time are two huge issues with buying and owning physical media. People here gotten older, married, have partners and kids, have moved and space is becoming a problem. Also, time is huge. Overbuying over the last couple of decades and the evolution of entertainment has changed how we consume media. I think the vast majority here simply has no time to rewatch media purchases from years ago as new stuff keeps coming out. And then you’re stuck with a never ending backlog. For that reason alone, I don’t buy most big studio releases as soon as they come out anymore.

I’ll likely get Top Gun Maverick week one as I loved that movie. But for other new shows studio movies, I have to be much more selective if I really need a physical copy of it.

I don’t like wasting money on stuff that I bought with my hard earned money. But new stuff keeps coming out fighting for my time and I have to prioritize stuff I want to keep up with versus a blu ray I bought 10 years ago of something I saw already.

JeffTheAlpaca

It would be easier to get rid of them if they were easier to sell and you don't sell them for huge losses.

Mike86

Thing is even if I’m not watching them all I still like having what I have on display. Probably weird saying that but they add some character to my space and people get an idea of what I like.

Much the same way my fiancée has her collection of books. A lot that she’s read and a lot that she’s bought with the intent of reading but hasn’t gotten to yet, but its part of what she likes. It’s just something I think a lot of people do.

L. Ron zyzzle

Wrong. You own the right to watch the movie, and the media on which it is placed. You can rent the disc or loan it. Whichever studio owns the contents. And you can't do whatever you want with it, such as reproduce, or publicly screen it free or for a fee, etc. Buying a copy of Stanley, however, is a good idea if you love complete schlock. It's fantastically wrong-headed, but if you don't like the sight of many real snakes getting brutalized and killed, steer clear.

Toddarino

I’m actually going in the opposite direction. I’ve been buying a ton of physical media. As a fan/collector of horror, cult and exploitation films, it truly is a wonderful time to collect. There’s a half dozen labels putting out films that an incredible amount of work went into.
I get unloading discs that you probably won’t revisit, but if you’re only getting a buck a disc, what’s the point? At the rate things leave and switch hosts, streaming is not a viable option for movie fans.
Maybe my situation is different. I’m single, own my own home and have a good paying job. I hate leaving the house so movies and music are my hobby.

DJariya

As the Europe Playstation situation shows, digital movies from any studio can go away at a moments notice when licensing deals run out. Not saying it will ever happen, but what happens if Vudu goes under for whatever reason? Or if they get into a contract/licensing squabble with one of the studios? Never say never. Ultra Violet went under. I had several titles from UV that weren't able to be transferred and are now gone from my library.

kd5

I own about 1400 of the movies/TV shows that I've truly enjoyed watching and will watch again when they come back up in the rotation. Any movie/TV show that I don't feel a kinship with, I take to The Exchange where I get credit I can use for future acquisitions, whether it be movies, TV shows, video games or accessories. My media is kept in 4 nice looking bookcases, in their respective cases with included inserts and/or slipcovers, in alphabetical order, and in as pristine a condition as I can manage. I've purchased just about everything I've ever wanted, with few exceptions, which I'll pick up as I find them. I have no plans to get rid of my videos (unless I'm dead, in which case my wife can do as she wishes with them because I'll no longer care).

Norm de Plume

No, I don't want to talk about this. I can't hear any of you. Nanananana.

E Unit

That’s why this is a hard talk.

davidlynchfan

I am definitely at the tail end of my collecting days (or maybe that’s what I keep telling myself) but nope I’m not getting rid of any of my stuff for sure, certainly not the pennies on dollar variety. Only the OOP good bucks variety, if I do get rid or them. I treat my physical media even more special than my family.

Why So Blu?

I pare it down a bit but right now the priority is 4K disc and BDs unless it's something rare on DVD that hasn't made it to BD/UHD. I have a few of those items. I resell my shit on eBay and declutter. Declutter doesn't pay as much as they used to but do offer free pre-paid labels for you to ship stuff out to them. I don't donate to libraries or goodwills, because they'll just be on sale again at their friends of the library sales or goodwill sale shelves. I'm better off selling it myself or just keeping it stored.

lwhy?

I've been trying to downsize my DVD collection. I'm still keeping my Blu-rays and 4ks for the time being. I sold about $200 worth at a yard sale a couple weeks ago. I've also been getting rid of my disc PlayStation games that I have gotten free digital copies of on PlayStation Plus. I love my collection, but it does take up a lot of space.

Hokeyboy

Physical music media like CDs, vinyl, I'll never get rid of. Movies I've purged quite a bit of, but the stuff I love will always remain. Still have 2001: A Space Odyssey on VHS, Laserdisc (Criterion and standard), DVD, and Blu-Ray. Even a few laserdisc box sets like Brazil and Toy Story. Criterions I still hold on to. The Fisher King and Taxi Driver laserdiscs have commentary tracks that have yet to see the light of day elsewhere.

It's not so much a room or space situation; the wife and I live in a 4/2 home (no kids) so we have a good amount of space in our individual offices. But I don't want to hoard things for the sake of hoarding things; they need to mean something.

I've actually sold more musical instruments than media to make "space". Old tube amps, keyboards, guitars, pedals... most of which I haven't played in years or even decades. Those took up the most room and I got the most $$$ for them.

Currently my wife is selling a ton of our stuff on eBay and Mercari. After we moved all the crap was still in boxes and in storage, made it easier to get it wrapped and shipped out.

PhantomStranger

The always-changing digital rights landscape means your MA account in another decade or so will likely be worthless. Any film or show you truly value I wouldn't be so quick to toss out.

No one really knows what the content landscape will look like in a decade. It's very possible the studios decide no one can own their movies.

And it goes without saying, anything slightly controversial may become permanently vaulted. I hope everyone has their copy of the Michael Jackson Simpsons episode.