How do you place your DVDs on the shelf? (1 Viewer)

[Joseph S]

Left Wall: Separated by Genre then Alphabetical
RIght Wall: Alphabetical groupings on Box Sets, Titles with 1 or more Sequels, Disney Animated Releases, and Criterion Co. TV Sets/Series go on the bottom alphabetically with a couple of shelves free for my "To Watch List"

 

[Cees Alons]

I use Justin's method (including the extra space for expansion).
Some special rules for box sets, sub-collections (Bonds, Disney Classics, Hitchcocks) and extremely non-film material (documentory: geographical, historical, etc.).
Cees
PS I still like the Snappers.
C.

 

[RAF]

Quote:



I don't see how any method, for any sized collection, could be better than straight alpha by title. Even for a 3400-piece collection.





Justin,
I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. Having lived with my system of numbering in order of purchase for many, many years I find it far superior to alphabetizing. Even if I used your "slack space" method (which uses up a tremendous amount of shelf space when you are talking about 1000's of titles) it becomes a major pain that is completely eliminated by the chronological numbering system. And "alphabetical" systems come with their own baggage, too (beyond the physical reshuffling that must be done whenever you merge new titles). You may, for example, be looking for "The Honeymooners" and forget that the title of the disc is "The Very Best of the Honeymooners" so you are looking in the "H" area instead of the "V" area (or do you file the title under "H"?) And there are titles with multiple names (is it "IMAX: Super Speedway" or "Super Speedway in IMAX?") My point is that alpha is not always clear cut and clean. A database with substring search capabilities solves this occasional location problem without the need to make such decisions when adding titles to the shelves.

The only fly in the ointment is the occasional "non-standard" size title, like the infamous Fantasia LD box (oversized) and DVD packages like Akira, 2001, the RepoMan and similar tins, etc. which are going to screw up most cataloging systems since they don't take up normal shelf space and must be accommodated.

And your scenario regarding my attempt to find a particular title is blown way out of proportion. In the first place, I don't have to turn on my computer (which is usually on anyway!) to find a title. I have a printout (which I update every few months, every time I catalog new discs which, until they are reside on a "new arrivals" shelf) that lists all titles alphabetically. This is always by my side in the HT (it currently is about 60 pages long!) Additionally, I just imported my database into my PalmPilot for instant access to the number of any title so I may, in the future, abandon any printouts. The Palmpilot "fingertip access" to my titles will also come in handy on the road when I'm purchasing discs on the spur of the moment and want to avoid duplication (don't laugh, this will happen to everyone when the collection grows, not just us old-timers.)

But I'm leaving out the most important side benefit of chronological cataloging. I discovered very early in the game that having a general idea of when a particular title came out (or when I acquired a title) greatly enhances my ability to locate it on the shelves. For example, if I'm looking for Singing in the Rain on DVD I know it was one of my early acquisitions so it's near the top of the shelves. You'd be amazed how this helps in finding titles quickly! Very rarely do I have to resort to consulting any list at all. Believe me, I'm talking from experience.

Everyone has to come up with a game plan that he or she can live with based on individual preferences and logistics once the "pile system" converts into a "file system" so go with whatever you prefer. I'm just sharing my thoughts based on extensive experence with this. The power of programs like DVD Profiler and similar make any particular subset of categorization possible when the mood hits you without having to physically rearrange your shelves every time you change your mind as to what's important to you in terms of disc storage.

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RAF
[Demented Video Dude since 1997]
[Computer Maven since 1956]
["PITA" since 1942]

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[JJR512]

Kurt N, sorry, I mis-typed. The CDs are organized alphabetically by group, and within a group, the group's albums are arranged in order of date of release.
Mr. Fowkes, I didn't mean to make it sound that I thought your method was incredibly complicated. I actually did say that I was assuming you left your computer on: "You gotta go to your computer...(assuming you leave your computer on all the time, else you gotta turn it on first, etc.)". I know that it wouldn't actually take that much time to go into DVD Profiler and look something up. My only point was that even if it only takes 10 seconds...well, had they been done by title alphabetically, I could probably have already found it in 10 seconds.
It's just the method that you like better. We're all different; I'm not saying that your method is stupid or that it shouldn't work. It's just the way you do it, it works for you, you're used to it, etc. Perhaps if I had tried that method originally, I would be defending it alongside you. But I tried the alpha method first, it seems to work OK for me, and being what I'm used to, I can't imaging doing it any other way.
About the Honeymooners example...I probably actually would have them all arranged under H for Honeymooners. I would definitely have all the Honeymooners stuff grouped together, although I might have it separated from the rest of the collection. I don't actually have any themed collections yet, so I haven't gotten to the point where it was necessary to decide about that. But for a collection such as this, or, say, a James Bond collection, I'd almost definitely have the collection grouped together. How the individual series goes together would depend on the series. James Bond movies would probably be organized by date of release of the original movie. If a collection had it's own volume numbering scheme, obviously I would go with that.
The other advantage you mention, that you can find a title fairly quickly because older movies tend to be near the beginning, etc., wouldn't hold up for me. I've only been buying DVDs for maybe two years, and simply don't have the money to buy a huge collection. Most of the DVDs I own are recent releases; in fact, most of the movies I own are movies I had already seen in the theater. When you're on a very limited budget, it's difficult to decide to spend money on a movie I've never seen because I don't know if I'll like it, and I don't want to have wasted my money on something I didn't like. The only movies I've bought that I hadn't already seen are movies that I wanted to see in the theater but missed them, and obviously, they would all be recent releases.
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-Justin "JJR512" Rebbert

Join the JJR512.com Genome@home Team and help cure what ails you. (Click here for more info.)
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[Kevin M]

Well for my 6 trillion strong DVD collection I had been hiring illegal Guatemalan immigrants to maintain a constant alphabetical check upon each of my hourly DVD conquests at my many personal warehouses scattered along my 5 million yard (square) estate but with the economy in recession I find using a Borg algorithm in conjunction with some highly modified Furby's is quite efficient....did I mention how large my penis is?

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-Kevin M.
I can brave the nastiest weather, even when it's eighty below.
My Pa was an Elephant, but that's irrelevant,
My Ma was an Eskimo." - Cannibal the Musical.

 

[Heinz W]

Starting on the top shelf moving down and left to right:
Box Sets, wider cases next (double alphas and certain special packaging like Lawrence of Arabia), followed by single alphas and amarays, and lastly the snappers.
Although not alphabetized I do keep similiar titles together like the Evil Dead Trilogy, for instance. In fact Evil Dead 1 is in with the amaray/alphas even though it is in one of those thin, tall jewel cases. I put ED II in an alpha because the tin had it packed in a CD jewel case.
Close Encounters is in with the snappers. I still haven't decided on whether or not to keep The Fifth Element Superbit in the cardboard sleeve or just use the alpha case alone...

 

[Joe McKeown]

You know, there is something to be said for little or no system. I have my 200+ broken up across 3 sets, "TV shows", "Titles I let my kids watch" and "Everything Else"
Ever want to watch a movie without a real clear idea of what you want to see, go to the shelves and just browse!
Granted though, at some point before 3400 titles this non-system will get awkward beyond reason. I doubt Guatemalan immigrants would help; Any one know where I could recruit a few Oompa Loompas?
Oompa Loompa doompa de do
We've got a fun-ney movie for you!

 

[David Lambert]

Personally, I store them in order of the primary color of the box. ROYGBIV, that's the ticket. Separate area for shades of grey!
Okay, now that I'm happy 'cuz I shit all over this thread (grin, duck, and run), here's what I really do:
I have a "Main" section. Everything is alphabetical within it. I have some sub-set collection areas: "Kids", "TV Series", "Informational". I also separately keep "Games", "Music" (not musicals; they go into Main...this is for Meat Loaf, Joan Jett, etc.), and "Misc." (pretty much just Video Essentials and the Total Movie discs). Everything is alphabetical within these.
Series that have more than a dozen discs to themselves get broken out for quick-reference: Disney, Star Trek, X-Files, and 007 qualify so far. Disney is currently alphabetical, but the others reside in-release order. Movies and TV shows get mixed together for ONLY these special break-outs. I expect Dr. Who to join this group very soon, depending upon BBC/WB output.
Oh, we also keep Christmas-themed items separate for the most part, since we only watch those once a year. We are thinking of re-integrating that into the other sections, though. But they're alphabetical.
We always leave a little bit of slack room on each shelf to insert newly bought items. When we run out of slack room, we know it's time to add storage space. Guess what? I'm out of slack room again...
Basically, I break it out if my wife and I agree it will mke it easier to find. For US; we don't care about anyone else. If we can't figure out where it should be in a separate section, it belongs in MAIN, alpha by title.
We have 897 as of today. If we can't ever figure out where any title is from memory, we know we'll be doing something wrong. We shouldn't need to use the computer to figure out where something is...although the information IS there.
On that subject, does anyone else ever print out a list of their titles and "take inventory"? I rarely loan anything out, so this ought to not be necessary. It just makes me feel better to know that I have them all, and they're where they should be. Retail background speaking, I suppose. Also, it's like taking your money out, throwing it on the floor and rolling in it. It's a way to immerse yourself in your collection for an hour or so.

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DAVE/Memphis

MORE TV ON DVD, PLEASE!

 

[george kaplan]

On that subject, does anyone else ever print out a list of their titles and "take inventory"?

Yes I do that once a year. But not to see what's on my shelf. It's too make sure that my excel file isn't missing any titles. I have an incredibly complex system for deciding what film to watch next, and it's all in an excel file I've created. I also use this file to develop a 'movie menu' to pass out to guests when they come over.
Anyway, my inventory is to make sure that no titles have been inadvertently deleted or misplaced in the excel file.
Oh, as for shelving, that is the opposite of my list. Very simple - alphabetical.
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13-time NBA world champion Lakers: 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1972, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 2000, 2001

 

[Brian Lawrence]

Straight A-Z for me.
In a case like Honeymooners, I would just place VERY BEST OF THE HONEYMOONERS under H.
When I get new discs I just stack them on top of my shelf and wait until I have a bit of a pile before I alphabetically mix them in with the rest of my titles. I would go insane if I tried to rearrange things every time I purchased a new dvd.
I have several dvdafficionado lists that I use for different methods of categorizing
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[Alan Wild]

I was actually contemplating re-oganizing my titles using a system I've not heard mentioned yet....
By Studio/Release. That way all Columbia/Tristar releases are together, all Universal titles are together, etc. Of course I would sepearte Infinifilm from New Line Platinum series and New Line would be positioned somewhere near Warner so that all my Snappers would be together.
The downside, obviously you need to remember which studio released which movie, but for a film buff that wouldn't be too hard.
I think it would be kinda' fun to do and I think it would make the shelf look really neat because Studio's tend to use similiar bindings for similiar releases.
I just think it would be neat to see a row of my Fox 5-stat releases all together in their silver cases.
Thoughts? Anyone do anything like this already?
BTW, my current scheme is largely alphabetic except all animation and TV boxsets are pulled out and sorted seperately. Anime is also seperated from the rest of the animation. (A lot of my friends refuse to watch anime so I keep them seperated as a conveince to them,)
-Alan

 

[Rob Robinson]

I've only got about 80 right now, but they are organized by studio.

 

[Martin G]

alphabetically and by genre. With boxed sets in thier own group. That way if I am in the mood for a comedy or an anime etc. I don't have to look through every single title.

 

[Artur Meinild]

With a moderate DVD collection (132 DVD's, don't think it will ever exceed 200), I place most of my DVD's by studio, then year/series/director/whatever-seems-appropriate.
In addition, I seperate TV/film and Region-1/Region-2 DVD's. With this system, I know exactly where I can find every DVD in my collection, and I can't see it will ever become a problem.
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~ Stud. Polyt. ~ Artur Meinild ~

 

[Stu Rosen]

I think part of the "by studio" or "by keepcase and then snapper" approaches is built on the assumption that your discs are going to be displayed. Then, since people will see them, it'll be "cool" to have similar studio bindings by each other.
I have about 675 discs, and the last thing I want my room to be filled with are DVD cases. I'm sorry, that ain't the look I'm going for. So, I keep my DVDs in Can-Am steel cases, and they're purely organized by alphabetical order, with no keepcase/snapper division. The only two exceptions are that my kids' DVDs are separated, as are music DVDs (no reason other than that I tend to listen to parts of many different music DVDs at the same sitting).
Each of these cases hold about 360 DVDs in a nice, small contained area.
Out of curiosity, do your friends actually think it's impressive that you have large collections? Personally, I find it's something that I have to explain to most people, and vaguely defend (i.e., how much does this collection cost? Isn't it cheaper to rent? Do you really like all these movies enough that you want to own them? How many times will you really watch each of these?...and so on.) I just can't imagine a scenario where friends think it's the coolest thing that I have covered my walls with product.
This isn't an insult to those that do -- I just genuinely don't understand this method of interior decorating.

 

[PerryD]

I recently reorganized my 750+ DVD collection. Previously, I alphabetized into two groups, keepcases and snappers.
Now, I mixed the two types of cases together and sort by genre: Family, Musicals, Horror, Comedy, Bond, Concerts, and then everything else (I guess this would be Action/Adventure/Dramas). The last category contains probably half my collection, but it did help immensely just to move the kids titles (>100) out into a different shelf.

 

[Artur Meinild]

Stu, I'll try to directly answer your question.
You're right that my discs are going to be displayed. I think they look cool, and so does a lot of people I know.
But of course that's because my collection is what I call "moderate", which means it's large enough to impress most people, but still small enough so I don't have to explain myself all the time!!
Actually, so far I've impressed several girls with my HT setup and my DVD collection, so I'll keep it this way for a while...

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~ Stud. Polyt. ~ Artur Meinild ~

 

[David Lambert]

That way if I am in the mood for a comedy or an anime etc. I don't have to look through every single title.

In my "database", which is an Excel file, I mark which ones I have and have not watched. I have a separate tab that is a "pivot table" (a kind of report, for those who never heard of it) that lists only discs I haven't viewed yet.
I print out the list from time-to-time, and keep it near my "library". When we have time to watch a DVD, we scan through the list (approx. 250 right now, of almost 900 discs owned) and look for something we're "in the mood for".
We list the print-out in order of purchase, with the oldest at the top. That way we watch older purchases before newer ones.
As we watch something, we mark it off the list with a pen, crossing through the entry on the printout. From time-to-time I go back to the database, mark the ones that've been watched, update the report/pivot-table with the "refresh" command, then print out a new list.
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DAVE/Memphis

MORE TV ON DVD, PLEASE!

 

[Jon_Are]

This has been a dilemma for me for some time now.
Because I have a modest collection (three discs), shelf arrangement is not the nightmare that I envision it to be for someone with, say, 900 DVDs. Nevertheless, it is an issue.
Originally I arranged them alphabetically (Almost Famous, Casablanca, then Saving Private Ryan). This is the most logical solution, and allowed me to go directly to the correct spot on the shelf when I was in search of a title, but there was a flaw: I didn't like the way the snapper of Casablanca stood out from the other two. So I re-arranged...
...I began sorting by studio (Casablanca's WB, followed by AF & SPR's Dreamworks). This, of course, solved the appearance problem but made it a bit more time-consuming when searching for a movie (I wish I had a dime for every time I reached for Almost Famous in that first slot, only to pull out Casablanca by mistake). I lived with this system for awhile, until...
...I had a brainstorm: Why not give each release its own shelf? I have eight shelves on which to store my collection, so I can give each of my DVDs its very own shelf. Additionally, this leaves FIVE shelves free to accommodate future purchases! Of course, when the day comes that my collection grows to more than eight discs - and it will - I will be forced to re-evaluate (and perhaps build more shelving). Until then, though, I am good to go!
(Hmmm....now, should I put Almost Famous on the top shelf...or the second?)
Jon
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--Owner of the North American rights to the small-orange-for-a-head joke. http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/...ML/005319.html

 

[gregstaten]

I have my DVDs arranged in two separate groups: those I've watched and those I haven't watched yet. In both groups, the movies are arranged by Genre and then by alpha within the genre. After the movies are sections for music videos, music concerts, short film collections, and television series.
I used to do pure alpha (back in the LaserDisc days) with the big boxed sets shelved separately. I continued this for a couple of years with DVD but eventually realized that doing it by Genre made it a WHOLE lot easier to look for a movie to fit a mood.
Plus, genre/alpha sorting seems to make it a lot easier for guests to pick a film. True - they have to look through two different areas - the watched and unwatched DVDs - but I usually don't tell 'em the two shelving spaces are for watched and unwatched movies. I just tell them they are the more recently acquired and less recently acquired. (At this point both groups take up a similar amount of shelf space.)
I also have a printout sorted by genre of the whole 1100 or so movies for browsing. But, most like to go to the shelves.
Regarding RAF's "gotta resort the shelves comment": Sure. That's true. In fact, it has become a weekend ritual. When the weekly shipment arrives, they DVDs are all opened, inspected for damage (I'm getting more and more broken spindles lately), and entered into the database. Then I shelve the new DVDs, rearranging the shelves to make room for the new movies in each genre.
After an evening of movies (or a few days of movies - depends upon the mood), I shelve the watched movies into the watched shelves, making room, if necessary (not if I pulled one off the watched shelves).
It works for me.
-greg