How Often Do You Dip DEEP Into Your Collection? (1 Viewer)

[george kaplan]

Off-topic, but I am truly lucky. As I said, she's not into it as much as I am, but she did have a ld player and lds before I met here and a collection of home theater magazines. So, she's into the HT idea, but just doesn't want to ever watch more than one movie a day. Oh, and she's beautiful, which is not only great, but also makes it very bizarre that she ended up with me.

 

[Kai Zas]

I bought my L300 last March. Great PJ, great experience. But I've only rewatched my favorites on it, never went through my entire collection. (Whith all the tv on dvd I've got, it just wouldn't be possible.)

To me, it somehow feels wrong to rewatch when I have such a big pile of unwatched dvds sitting here.

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

George,

Humility and patronage are hallmarks of the holiday season. :wink:

Hopefully your wife sees this thread and buys you one more last-minute gift.

My girlfriend's extremely attractive herself, which sort of surprised me, too, in the early days, but, not to put too fine a spin on things, I am one DAMN FINE LOOKING HUMAN SPECIMEN, so if she don't like it...

Hey, where'd all this coal come from?

Honey?

Sweetheart?

Whaaat?

 

[Jeff_HR]

I never rent DVDs. And I have not rented a film since the early '90s. I own 1076 DVDs & I buy them because I wish to watch them. With some DVDs it may take a long while until I get to them, but I will get to them one day. There are some DVDs I rewatch quite often. Some are quite obscure & "deep" into the library & some are not. There is no real pattern to my watching habits.

 

[Mitch Stevens]

I am very quickly reaching the 600 DVD mark right now. I buy 5 DVDs per week, every week. And not only that, but I also rent from Netflix (Unlimited 3 plan).

I watch the rentals from Netflix the very same day they arrive, and return them the very next day (so I can get as many rentals as I can for the month) and my "new" DVD purchases come second (after there aren't any rentals to watch).

With all of this, (rentals & new purchases) I find it EXTREMELY difficult to rewatch even just a few of older titles. And I only have almost 600 DVDs.

I have no idea how you guys with 2000+ DVDs have any time to re-watch something more than once. I fear that I might be headed down the same path. When I think that *I* might end up owning more than 2000 DVDs, it doesn't excite me at all. It scares me, because there is simply no possible way to ever rewatch any of them in my entire life-time. It seems like a huge waste of money paying $20 for each DVD in your collection that you know you'll never get around to re-watching, simply because you know you're never going to stop buying new stuff, or stop renting movies which you didn't get a chance to see in theaters.

BTW, I currently have 483 titles in my rental queue at Netflix (mostly filled with tons of multi-disc set TV shows which I never saw when they aired on TV).

And I have about 1,000 titles on my "To Buy" list. These are titles which I have seen, either on TV, or at the theater, or even rentals, which I loved, and I need to buy.

I see no end in sight. At this rate, I will never RE-watch any of my DVDs.

 

[george kaplan]

Well, looking at the number of dvds I watched in the past year, and how large my collection is, and my life expectancy, my best estimate is that I will watch most of the dvds currently in my collection about another 12 times in my life. Then there are the 32 dvds in my collection that we watch once a year, which should get approximately another 40 viewings.

 

[chris_clem]

It seems to me that a lot of us just fall into the personality type who just loves to collect stuff. I was heavily into comics back then too. Now I have boxes of it stashed in the basement with maybe only a handful I would consider revisiting again.

Of course I don't forsee myself "outgrowing" my love for film so I can definitely picture this collection (around 600 so far since I started collecting them last year.) to keep growing till the day I die!( ...then there's also my love for music and my still growing 1000+ CD collection!:b

I think many of us just love the concept of collecting stuff just as much as we love the movies themselves! Admit it half the fun is in hunting down these titles and waiting around for certain "favorites" to be released isn't it?

 

[Kai Zas]

It sure is. I take enormous joy in shopping for dvd's. Reading the forums, hunting down release dates and such. I can honestly say I spend (almost) as much time choosing and buying and reading about dvds as I do watching them.

The want to get a dvd is even stronger than the want to watch it. There's loads of titles I've had for more than half a year to a year that I havn't even seen yet. I remember the joy of finding them, ordering them, unwrapping them and adding them to my dvd profiler collection, yet the urge to pop it in and watch it is not as strong. This often confuses the hell out of me. Makes me doubt my sanity in this whole affair. But I know I'll watch them all someday, that I'm just waiting for the right mood to hit me. It's even worse with tv on dvd, by the way. Some series sit there and I tell myself I'll wait untill I have them complete before watching them. Sopranos, Friends, Futurama, Simpsons. (Would you believe I still have to see Farscape Season 4? Apparantly the miniseries to finish it off is still a rumour) Just waiting for the collection to be complete. If it takes me this long to watch something first time around, how long will it be before I rewatch a title... (and there I go again...)

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who's ALSO in it for the collecting. When I browse, order and unwrap, I'm shaping my collection into something I can be proud of, not just to myself, but also to others, as a statement of my taste. Ofcourse, when you have loads of dvds, you're bound to have a lot of titles that others don't like or wouldn't be seen dead with. But on the other hand, there's someting to everyobodies liking in there too...

(I'm rambling, sorry...)

 

[rich_d]

I'm around the 600 title mark.

I own many films that I have only watched once.

This includes many real favorites, but then again, I don't want to see real favorites often, preferring to see them years apart. May not seem too logical, but when the time is right, the time is right and they are there waiting for me.

Someone a while back suggested pruning a DVD collection much like you might reduce a book collection - by selling titles that seem (after the fact) unwanted. They mentioned that it is easy to sell old DVDs and they were surprised at the amount they got for some titles. I would agree - it has worked out pretty well.

 

[Todd Robertson]

why are so many people in such a bloody hurry to viddey all thier dvds more than once? I guess I'm with the rare crowd who enjoys having a library of films/dvds. some books remain untouched for long periods of time in the public library....does this make them worthless or a waste of space? my films are collected not just for enjoyment purposes...but the library has historical and research value. there are many ways to be re-turned on to a film. it can happen by reading an article or by being on forums like this. I always want my personal favs on hand....to watch or refer to at anytime. since I wont be replacing all my titles on HD-DVD...there is really no reason to get rid of them. they all serve thier purpose and the library will only continue to grow. by time I have everything I need....I'll be hitting around 2,000.

every night I try to add an older dvd purchase to my line-up of newer discs. this is the only way to check for delamination and disc defects that develop over time. so mine dont get watched for 2, 5, or 10 years...who cares?

 

[Joel C]

No it isn't.

 

[nolesrule]

I'm up to about 270, having started purchasing DVDs in early 1998. There are about 50 that don't get watched very often. In fact, my wife and I decided to make a list of DVDs in our collection that we felt would just sit there and we sold every single one of them on half.com. Helped pay for some of the newer DVDs we wanted.

We have also gotten pickier about what we buy and have limited the impulse buying. Impulse buys must be limited in price to no more than $14.99.

There's even stuff on my DVDProfiler wishlist that by the time it is released or I get to the store to buy, I don't feel like purchasing it anymore.

 

[Scott_MacD]

If I may be so bold as to observe, but *what* a delightful thread to read.. There's a lot of love for movies pouring out, and it's inspirational to look at it and begin a new scheme for cycling through my collection which is around 480-500, after four years. Yeah, it hits the cinephilic romantic in me. Shucks.

Anyway, back to the thread. And the answer to the title question is, not often enough.

 

[Derek_McL]

I totally agree with you Scott its very interesting to read people's experiences concerning large DVD collections. My collection of films is well over the 400 mark and like others I try to think of inventive ways to cycle through it. 2003 for instance was the year of genre evenings. I divided my collection into seven roughly equal lists and arranged screenings roughly as follows :

Sunday : Silent
Monday : Comedy
Tuesday : Drama
Wednesday : Action
Thursday : Sci-fi/ Horror
Friday : Thrillers
Saturday : Musicals

Apart from a few soaps and sports events I rarely watch much TV these days so I have been able to see most of my collection in 2003. Right enough the collection is also increasing all the time and during the holiday period I suppose I've been breaking the "rules" watching all my new Christmas discs. Those titles will be put to the bottom of the list.

Out of almost 500 discs I think there is about 20 which either because of poor transfers (rare really, as long as a film is good I can still enjoy a very grainy print) or disappointing blind purchases I probably won't revisit. A few of the the new films I hadn't seen before I might give another chance to but all things considered 20 out of almost 500 isn't bad.

There are still probably about 40-50 DVDs I haven't seen yet. One thing I've discovered is its difficult to make predictions about when my collection will be complete. Few modern films really interest me but I've been surprised as well by some of the rarer old titles which have appeared on DVD.

I also have a DVD recorder but British TV doesn't provide all the films I want even though I have about a 100 from a year of recording from broadcasts. Silents are virtually nonexistent on British TV so that is an area I'm particularly interested in when buying commercial DVDs. Loads more of those Fox,MGM and Warner 30s films would be great too of the type rarely seen on mainstream TV.

I don't think I had even 100 films on VHS (probably a lot less)but my passion for classic cinema has definitely increased with DVD. Of the post 1960 films I would say the only ones I really consider must buys now are the original Star Wars Trilogy and Schindler's List both looking like they are coming next year. I think probably around 40 others from the silent and classic eras will pretty nearly complete my collection. I honestly don't have space for anymore! You have to call a halt sometime / draw the line somewhere.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

At first, when I got my player in 1999, I had a lot of impulse buys: it was worth owning things just to say I own things. Over the past couple years, though, I've taken note of which films I have watched again and which films haven't been watched more than once (or at all). Now I put a little bit more thought into what I buy and what I don't.

For instance, unless it's a film I love and know I'll watch again and again, I won't buy barebones editions. I can always rent those, and I won't want to keep it for a long time because there are no special features to go through. DVDs that have good bonus features are always worth a buy - the Warner two disc special editions are fantastic.

If the Alien Quadrilogy had come out when I first started collecting, I would have bought it. I preordered it from Amazon, but in the end, I canceled the order. I actually took a moment to think about why I was buying it, and I really didn't have a reason. I like the first Alien film, but I don't love it. Aliens was OK, I thought, but I really have no interest in ever seeing it again. The third film I hated, the fourth I couldn't even sit through - so why the hell would I be buying that set? The extras were tempting me, but the truth is I probably would never watch bonus features for movies that didn't interest me, so I let it go. Rethinking my purchases like that has saved me some money, and allowed me to buy other things I want.

If I have something on video, now I try not to buy the DVD unless there's good reason to. I won't buy a bare bones DVD of a video I have if it's not something I watch often. Even favorites of mine, like Vertigo, I haven't gotten around to buying yet because I haven't watched it in so long - I figure the next time I want to watch it, I'll go out and buy it, but not until then.

As for watching, there are always a few films that stay near the player - I've watched Wonder Boys a zillion times, and I'll watch it a zillion more. I did realize that I had a certain number of discs that I hadn't even attempted to watch since I got them, and those are the movies I brought home with me for Christmas break - I'm going to try to avoid rewatching other DVDs until I take a look at those.

I don't mind having a DVD library - in fact, I like that I do. Sure, it's cost a lot of money if you want to add it up (and I "only" have around 250-300), and most are worth less now than when I bought them originally, and will be worth even less if HDTV is a smashing success, but who cares? With very few exceptions, I'm happy that I own everything I have.