Do you allow friends to borrow your Blu-ray discs? (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Jingles]

I am a new person here asking many questions but I do enjoy the responses that these questionnaire threads receive and it's probably the best way for a newbie like me to get to know everyone.

Do you lend/loan out your Blu-ray discs to friends/family?

I am the kind of individual that takes very good care of my things. I have lent out DVD discs in the past to friends and either never got them back or they were returned filthy.

It's kind of hard to say "no" to people that ask. All that said, I am also slowly learning from lending mistakes I have made.

 

[Richard V]

Nope

 

[Robert Crawford]

Never! If I lived in the same city as some family members, I might, but I would be very careful regarding certain relations.

 

[Dr Griffin]

I loaned one once, and it came back with a finger print! That was the last time.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Here is a response that will entice you to lend out discs to your friends....

Lent out a copy of "Downfall" on DVD to my boss years ago. He got transferred,
I never saw the copy again.

Had another boss that I am still good friends with who I lent the DVD copy of
Prometheus to. I think he may have returned it to me -- not certain (he says he
does not have it) -- but often when people at work return things, one tends to
quickly put it somewhere for safe-keeping and then forget about it altogether.

Finally, there was a DVD copy of "The Dark Knight Returns" that I lent out to
another co-worker. Told him to take good care of it. He had it for months. When
it was returned there were scratches all over the back of it.

So, there's a great "pep talk" for all of you contemplating to lend out your precious
movies to family and co-workers.

Seems from reading the responses already posted, you guys are already a lot
smarter than I was.

 

[Robert Crawford]

One more point, I would never, ever loan out any DVD/BD of a title that was really a personal favorite film of mine. I would play it for guest(s) in my HT, but it will never leave my premises. As film buffs, who are collector's, we are a weird bunch that border on being very selfish in regard to their collection of films.

 

[Dr Griffin]

Sitting alone, rubbing our hands together saying "Mine, MINE, ALL MINE!"

 

[Rob_Ray]

With rare exceptions, no I never lend out my DVDs or BluRays. This is a policy that goes back to my laserdisc collecting days. Back in 1995, I had a friend call me and ask to borrow my laserdisc of "Foreign Correspondent" to show at a weekly film class he was taking on Friday evenings. I said I don't loan out my lasers but would be happy to bring it to his class on Friday night. Well, one thing led to another and for the next eighteen years I programmed classic video-generated nights at the movies for the Long Beach School for Adults. We would show cartoons, shorts, trailers for next week's show and a feature every Friday evening until early last year when the principal who bankrolled the enterprise finally retired. Boy, I miss watching my lasers, and later DVDs and still later BluRays on a giant theatre screen, especially now that the technology to do it right is so advanced! I really need to find another public venue like a public library to share my collection with others.

 

[Dick]

I would sure as hell not lend out a DVD or Blu-ray that is currently out of print!

 

[Robert Crawford]

Sitting alone, rubbing our hands together saying "Mine, MINE, ALL MINE!"

With my best Daffy Duck voice.

 

[Charles Smith]

In a word .... No.

I will GIVE things to people, but not lend them.

I'll bet we all have stories of having lent something like a treasured book, record, or a movie to a trusted friend -- and decades later having never seen it again. And hey, we're still friends...but it's something that happens. Fairly commonly. And I've learned my lesson.

 

[jcroy]

Every time anybody asks me to loan them a dvd or bluray, I just tell them I don't own the disk and that I downloaded the movie.

It's a fast way to get them to shut up and drop the topic.

 

[ROclockCK]

I loaned one once, and it came back with a finger print! That was the last time.

My first loaner came back with rancid peanut butter on it. Never again.

 

[jcroy]

In practice, I find it is easier to just not talk about movies or tv shows at all with offline colleagues, friends, or acquaintances.

It saves a lot of trouble and limits any future demands from other people.


More generally, I don't tell anybody offline about my hobbies and what I do with my free time.

I find that many people offline have an annoying habit of placing demands on me, if they know I have expertise in something "practical". For example, once an acquaintance knows that I know something about computers, they'll be forever constantly telling me about their computer problems and asking me to fix it for them. (I've heard similar types of stories from friends who are doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc ...).

Most of the stuff I talk about offline with friends, family, acquaintances, etc ..., is either really mundane stuff and/or topics that have very little to no "practical" use in everyday real life (ie. such as Einstein's theory of relativity, etc ...). It's an easy way to get them to shut up and drop the subject.

 

[schan1269]

I buy crap tons of foreign film. I "lend" out a bunch.But, I buy used, predominantly, to begin with.When I bought Pillow Book, it was watched by ny niece in college...before I had a chance to. She has a big crush on Ewan(of course, I don't see it...).Doesn't help when several friends and family members have keys to your house...and tend to know when you are gone.I'll purposely buy 2-3 copies of a movie(on BD and DVD) and put the BD in my bedroom collection (where everybody knows not to borrow from).Hell, I'll come home and a disc will be in a player that I left empty. Or I'll know I only had one of something...and two will be there when I look again.Put it this way...I have two copies of the last Indiana Jones(Kingdom of Skulls??) And I didn't buy them...nor have I seen it.

 

[David Norman]

Not to anyone I currently am near enough to do so. There are one or two folks I might since I know theywere taught handle vinyl LPs and were well trained (like I was) how to handle those without touching the surface.I just find no excuse to ever touch the surface of any Media -- LP, LD. DVD. BD. There is no excuse to evenhave to clean a fingerprint to begin with.Lay a disc on a surface that isn't it's holder -- never.See a stack of 10 discs sitting on top of each other or sitting on a coffee table naked -- disgusting.Play frisbee with them like I've seen some of my friends do -- I'drather have a root canal without anesthesia than think of some of these people holding my discs.

 

[DaveF]

In a word .... No.

I will GIVE things to people, but not lend them.

I lend and borrow books, movies, and games on timescales up to a few years.

Generally, the question is "will I lend a mass produced item worth about $20?" Yes. Of course. If it's never returned...I'm out $20. But I also borrow from friends. I've lent out the entire Smallville series to a friend, and I've borrowed some video games from him for a couple of years. I just lent a board game to a coworker and am unconcerned if he returns it or not.

I suppose this might be different if the item was rare or worth hundreds. Or if I had a vast collection that would going to be treated like a public library by family if I let on. But that's not my situation.

In any case, I'm finding people aren't interested in discs anymore. If they can find it on Netflix or Cable, they'll watch it. But even saying "this is a great movie and I'll lend it to you" is more often than not met with disinterest

 

[Rob Mac]

I thought that the DVD that is included in bluray combo packs was for lending.

 

[jcroy]

In any case, I'm finding people aren't interested in discs anymore. If they can find it on Netflix or Cable, they'll watch it. But even saying "this is a great movie and I'll lend it to you" is more often than not met with disinterest

These days I find that many local friends/acquaintances/colleagues will just go straight to Netflix or cable these days, instead of asking me about movies. In the past, I always found it annoying being asked about movies that I have very little to no interest in. (I have no idea why many local friends/acquaintances/colleagues thought I was a "movie guru" of some sort).

For computer type stuff, these days many local friends/acquaintances/colleagues finally figured out that if their computer doesn't work, it's easier to just throw away the old one and buy a new one, and that it is a waste of time and money to 'fix' the old one. Especially if the old one is more than 3 or 4 years old.

 

[Vic Pardo]

I only lend out duplicates. And I usually don't get them back. But, hey, that's why I got duplicates.

I'd actually love to lend my stuff out to interested parties who are gonna watch them and give the back within a week. If I could find someone who'd do that, I'd happily lend them films. I have tons of stuff that people would be interested in, but nobody cares anymore. All my young co-workers find what they want on-line and never bother with physical media anymore. I had female co-workers once, one of whom was an intern, who I got interested in Japanese animation, one in 2003 and one in 2006, so I would lend them Hayao Miyazaki movies and the like and they duly watched them enthusiastically and brought them back in a week and got another one when they did so. Never had a problem. But they're the exception that proved the rule. Of course I fell in love with both of them--how could I not?--but I had to keep that to myself. Oh, well...