What % of your collection remains unwatched? (1 Viewer)

[Martin_Teller]

In terms of movies in my collection I've never seen, just one: Homesdale, the bonus movie on Criterion's new Picnic at Hanging Rock release.

In terms of discs that I've never played, less than 1%. I try to play them as soon as I buy them, though sometimes of course life gets in the way. At the moment, I have these waiting to be watched:

My Neighbor Totoro (BR)
Midnight (DVD)
Polyester (DVD)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (BR)
All That Heaven Allows (BR)

There are a few others in my collection where I saw the movie on Netflix or something, immediately bought the disc, and shelved it without playing it. But I keep a record of the last time I watched each movie in my collection, and I try to keep it under 5 years between each viewing. So any unwatched discs I have will be watched (or possibly discarded) within the next few years.

 

[ScottHM]

DVD Profiler says that I have 278 movies on Blu-ray and that I've watched only 83 of them.

That's not too surprising since I'm viewing my video collection in roughly chronological order and I'm only up to about 1948 right now.

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[Konstantinos]

Have watched 66 out of 112 Bluray movies, and 3 episodes from the complete Star Trek Original TV series.

So that would be around 50% unwatched?

 

[Ed Lachmann]

There aren't too many of the blu-rays my wife and I haven't ventured into. We have "screenings" almost every other night, so you go through them rather fast. That's why I find the denigration of a BD/DVD collection as "hoarding" somewhat ridiculous. Had my THE EGYPTIAN out last night for the fifteenth time. Guess I consider it "comfort food", so it gets a lot of activity. Hate to think of what the streaming costs for my reviewing of that title would be by now.

 

[ROclockCK]

I thought I would be alone on that one Ed, and am currently up to about 10 viewings, including runs with Commentary and IST. I still find it mesmerizing...

So same reason as you why streaming would never work for me.

 

[DaveF]

I've got about 10% unwatchable. And that's why I stopped buying movies for home. I've got a couple hundred DVDs and Blu-rays, TV and movies. I realized I was repeating the same cycle for the third time: buying and not re watching. And then buying, and not watching. This is because there's so much great TV and I got a TiVo. I still buy TV series that I'll watch on travel. But I stopped buying movies, especially the Black Friday bargain bins. I hate having money locked up in unwatched blu-Rays

 

[jcroy]

I largely attribute this to the time before I purchased a computer bd-r drive. Before I purchased a bd-r drive, I always forced myself to watch through every new bluray disc I purchased immediately that day, largely to check if there's any technical problems/defects with the discs.

(Elaborating after thinking about it more).
(Going slightly offtopic).

I think I can trace exactly what killed my initial interest in buying dvds, back in the late 1990's.

Of the first batch of dvds I ever purchased, one was Terminator 2. It turned out my Terminator 2 dvd disk had some technical problems, where it froze within the first 20 minutes into the movie.

When I first purchased it, I didn't watch it at all until a few weeks later. When I finally got around to watching it and noticed the disc defect, there was only 3 or 4 days left until the store exchange/return time period was expired. I managed to exchange it for another copy, which didn't appear to have any manufacturing defects.

At the time, I didn't have a computer dvd-rom drive. So it never occurred to me to check an entire disc for bad sectors on the computer. (IIRC, computer dvd-rom drives were still quite expensive and the dvd css encryption DRM system was not yet cracked at the time).

So pretty much after this incident with that faulty Terminator 2 dvd disc, I subsequently forced myself to watch through every new dvd disc I purchased to check for any technical problems/defects. As a result, I hardly purchased any dvds afterward (until 2011). I didn't have the interest nor the patience to want to watch through every potential new dvd disc purchase from start to finish. Of the subsequent dvds I purchased at the time, it felt like "pulling teeth" when I forced myself to watch through every single one of them from start to finish. (These were all movies that I really liked too, such as: Cheech and Chong, Wall Street, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, etc ...).

 

[DavidJ]

My "modest" collection of Blu-rays is about 400 when you include the individual movies in box sets. I'd say about 25% of it is still unwatched, which I find a bit depressing, but it is comforting to know I'm not alone. My wife doesn't like it all. She would have me stop buying completely until we watch all that we have, but I don't see that happening.

 

[jcroy]

I realized I was repeating the same cycle for the third time: buying and not re watching. And then buying, and not watching.

This was my "third cycle" too. Though my first two cycles may be quite different than yours.

My first cycle was buying a lot of vinyl records. This lasted through the 1980's for me. (Approximately a decade).

My second cycle was buying a lot of music cds. This lasted from the late-1980's to the mid-late 2000's for me. (Approximately 20 years or so). Towards the very end of this second cycle, I was buying tons of $1 (or $2) used music cds at thrift shops (such as Goodwill or Salvation Army) which I largely haven't listened to at all.

My "third cycle" started in 2011, when I started buying a lot of dvds and blurays. I think I may very well be hitting the "burnout" stage of this cycle.

 

[Paul Penna]

If you mean watched all the way through rather than just sampled or watched in part, I just calculated this from my database: 58% of my Blu-Rays remain unwatched. 150 out of 257. I knew it was high, but I have to admit I'm kind of shocked.

 

[DaveF]

This was my "third cycle" too. Though my first two cycles may be quite different than yours.My first cycle was buying a lot of vinyl records. This lasted through the 1980's for me. (Approximately a decade).My second cycle was buying a lot of music cds. This lasted from the late-1980's to the mid-late 2000's for me. (Approximately 20 years or so). Towards the very end of this second cycle, I was buying tons of $1 (or $2) used music cds at thrift shops (such as Goodwill or Salvation Army) which I largely haven't listened to at all.My "third cycle" started in 2011, when I started buying a lot of dvds and blurays. I think I may very well be hitting the "burnout" stage of this cycle.

Yours are more interesting. Mine is the simple iteration of VHS, DVD, then Blu 20 years on, I've quit the process, for now. Fortunately, there are other great ways to waste my money!

 

[jcroy]

In hindsight, my "heightened paranoia" over dvd/bluray bad sectors and other technical problems, was the only thing which severely constrained my "ocd" compulsive collecting/hoarding habit when it came to dvds and blurays.

Before I had a computer dvd-r (or bd-r) drive, I was extremely reluctant to buy any new dvds/blurays that I wasn't willing to force myself to watch through entirely from start to finish, including end credits and special features. (I suppose during these eras, my "ocd" behavior/mentality manifested itself in the form of forcing myself to watch through an entire dvd/bluray disc from start to finish).

But once I purchased a computer dvd-r (or bd-r) drive and figured out how to use the relevant software, that reluctance vanished overnight. So instead of spending 2+ hours watching through a dvd or bluray disc, it only takes 5 to 12 minutes to extract a dvd disc's entire iso (or 30 to 45+ minutes to extact a bluray's entire iso). With such a short time period to check for any bad sectors and other technical problems on any dvd/bluray disc, my previous "heightened paranoid" over bad sectors was almost completely gone. So there was nothing left to constraint my "ocd" compulsive collecting/hoarding habit now, when it came to dvds and blurays.


At times I wonder whether I would have been better off, if I had never bothered buying a dvd-r (or bd-r) computer drive. (Or removing the dvd-r drive entirely from my new computer purchases).

 

[AshJW]

As I have an Excel file, I can tell you exactly

I own 868 BD's, 288 are unwatched. That is 33,18%
105 (10,10%) are still unknown to me (blind buys).


But I still have unwatched DVD's, 308 of 1265 (24,35%)
139 blind buys (11%).

 

[cineMANIAC]

I don't know how many Blu-rays (or DVDs for that matter) I have unwatched. It's a sizable number, mainly Criterions and exploitation titles. The reason I have a lot of unwatched films in my collection is I don't purchase them to fulfill some kind of weekly quota. I watch them when I'm in the mood. And I NEVER leave a BD shrinkwrapped. Every title I've purchased goes on an automatic spot-check list. I like to check out the picture quality, menus, that sort of thing. If anything, I NEVER watch movies I just bought right away (probably because I'm never in the mood to watch that particular film).

 

[Charles Smith]

Same here. Nothing stays in the shrink wrap, and everything's taken for an initial check ride, then it's put in its proper place and saved for just the right day of discovery or rediscovery.

 

[Richard M S]

OK, I still have laser discs I have not watched. However for financial reasons I am making a concentrated effort to stay home and watch as many as I can these days. I am currently halfway through Season One of HOUSE OF CARDS which I find more enjoyable than almost anything I have seen in years.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I don't know what my percentage of unwatched titles is, it's probably around 10-20%, with more of the unwatched titles being DVDs rather than Blu-rays. (I probably have a total of around 900-1000 DVDs and Blu-rays ... hard to say for sure with the various box sets.) The number of movies I own that I've never seen in any form is a bit lower than that -- very few unwatched blind buys on the shelf.

I have a lot more unwatched titles in DVD because of various box sets... for example, I really wanted both "The Philadelphia Story" and "Bringing Up Baby". When they came out as two-disc special editions around 2003 or 2004, there was also a seven film "Classic Comedies Collection" from Warner that features those two special editions, and the seven movie box set was maybe five dollars more than just buying the two movies I wanted, so I bought the set. Flash forward a decade, and while Philadelphia and Baby have gotten plenty of viewings, the other five films in the set haven't been touched. I know they're all good films, I've seen at least one of them before I had the set, and I don't mind that it's on my shelf, but I don't strictly "need" them either. I've tried to cut down on that type of purchase for Blu-ray. And with all the DVDs I do have that haven't been watched, these days I'm trying to restrict my purchases to at least things I'm planning on watching soon. Unless it's a $5 Blu-ray upgrade of a DVD I already have, I'm not making a lot of purchases anymore based solely on it being onsale.