Am I the only one buying DVDs faster than I can watch them? (1 Viewer)

[RodneyT]

Myself, I try and watch stuff straight away when I purchase.... although i probably have about five or six of my 700+ collection still to watch that I have bought previously.... Still, as a post above said, its about having a choice.

I have noted that as I have recently got married, I have less time for watching the movies I want to watch, and more time for snuggling with the wife in front of Shall We Dance, Spanglish or blasted Moonstruck.

 

[LarryH]

Right on! I'm not surprised that there are a lot of closet "collectors" like me. Thanks for giving me company.

BTW - My problem is my general TV addiction - what with watching Lost, CSI, Numbers, etc., etc., I have trouble finding time to watch more than one DVD movie a week. Oh, yeah, then there's History Channel, Science Channel, etc., etc..... it never ends....information overload has struck!!

 

[CraigF]

NO!! It's disgusting really. But at this time of year it's dark early, so that helps when you don't have a light-proof room...

 

[Anthony Neilson]

As someone once said -

What's the point in having a library full of books you've already read ?

 

[ted:r]

Sigh

Total DVD Movies in my collection watched : 1244 (Doesn't include TV series and general music video)

Total DVDs in my collection to be watched : 551

There are simpply not enough hours in the day to watch all the DVD's I want, listen to all the music I want to, read all the books I want to and surf the Net and work and sleep. Unfortunately work and sleep take up 19 hours a day and thus my dilemma. If I could find out a way to cut down on the last two (and still get money and keep my health!)

 

[Kevin M]

I have a question, how many of you just buy DVD's outright even if you don't like the films or have never even seen the films?

Second question to those who do this....why?

 

[John Stone]

I was almost caught up, but I purchased almost 50 DVDs last month and that set me back a bit. As of this morning I've got 60 titles in my collection of 968 DVDs that are still unwatched. I like having a backlog, but I don't like it to get much bigger than it is now.

Complete stats: http://www.twowiresthin.com/dvd/stats.php

 

[Dale MA]

I've got a fair few unwatched DVDs, the thing that does it for me is when I buy big boxsets of movies/TV shows such as:

- Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection
- Friends - The Complete Series 1 - 10
- Laurel & Hardy - The 21 disc Collection
Etc.

They take AGES to get through, it sure is fun though

 

[Damin J Toell]

I think the better question for this forum would be: who buys DVDs SLOWER than the rate at which they are watched? I'm thinking there will be no affirmative responses.

DJ

 

[Scott Merryfield]

While I do not buy films that I knowingly do not like (unless they are part of a well-priced box set), I do buy a lot of films that I've never seen before. These include films recently in theaters as well as older classics. We rarely go to the movie theater and I have not got in the habit of renting. If I end up with a few films I do not like, I just sell them -- it works out to about the same cost as renting.

All the recent Warner box set, Universal Hitchcock set and TV season series has me behind, too. Once football season is over, though, I'll have more leisure time to catchup. I do not watch prime time network TV, so my DVD library is my evening entertainment when I have the time.

 

[Eric Peterson]

I can't think of any time where I bought a film that I did not like. There are many times that I have purchased films that I'm luke warm on if they contain good extras, or if it is a mediocre work of a favorite director.

As for why would I buy a film that I haven't seen, that's an extremely simple yet complicated answer. How else do you see the thousands upon thousands of great classic films that are out there? You certainly can't go to Blockbuster or Hollywood video, or even a local rental store. With online rental you have to wait for the film you want, because more often than not, they don't carry enough copies of the older films to fill the pipeline. Finally, I like to support the work of studios that realize these films are a part of history and need to properly preserved, and not forgotten. Certainly there are some stinkers in there, but by the time I purchase the film, keep it an indefinite period of time, watch it, then turn around and sell it, I have lost no more money than a rental fee.

 

[Mark VH]

This is why I gave up video games :b

I've got a collection of roughly 620 movies, with about 70 or so unwatched (as well as two or three TV sets). These include stuff that I've seen and blind buys, and my watching them really depends on what kind of mood I'm in. As most have said, it's a time issue - I work so much that I only really have time to watch films on the weekend, and on a good weekend I can really only take in 4 or 5 films. Not to mention that I try to stay up to date on my theatrical viewing, so if I go to a film on a weekend, that cuts the DVD viewing to 2 or 3 at best.

I think this comes with being a slave to the release schedule. Each week, I pore over the list of discs hitting the street and generally order whatever I feel I'm going to want to watch at some point and order it, regardless of whether I'll get to it that weekend or some other time. So whereas I'm buying as many as six or seven discs a week, stuff just piles up.

There's also the issue of re-watching old discs. In addition to the unwatched pile, I can think of twenty or thirty films on the shelf of which I'm due for another viewing (lots of loooong stuff - Godfather 1&2, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, etc.). So sometimes I'll opt to watch one of those instead of something on the unwatched pile, leading the pile to grow even more.

I've come to really not care, though. Recently I've been very good about watching stuff in the unwatched pile that's been there for a while, which at least makes me feel like I'm starting to clear out the backlog. Additionally, since I'm living with my folks right now and looking to move into my own place at some point soon, I like to think that I'm stocking up for the time when I won't have nearly the amount of disposable income I've got now. Sure, I'm rationalizing, but it makes me feel at little better about the buying-then-not-watching habit.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say I have at least 200-300 DVD's I have not watched, some of which I haven't even seen the film before. I also have about 25 TV boxsets still to get through once (nevermind the ones I'd like to watch again), as well as about 30-35 concert DVD's.

I find the biggest culprit for my huge stack of unwatched films is TV on DVD. Because they're addictive (and more prone to failure it seems), I tend to watch these as soon as possible, and I usually wind up finishing a 18-20 hour season in 7-10 days. But then I think, I could have watched 10 films in that time. Just never seems to happen that way. My current TV backlog includes all 3 seasons of ST:TOS (most of which I've never seen), all 4 seasons of ST:Enterprise (blind buy), all 7 seasons of ST:Voyager (seen about half of them before), Kolchack: The Night Stalker, Millennium S3, Seinfeld S5 and S6, Alias S3 and S4, and South Park Seasons 1-6 (blind buys).

Wow, it wasn't until I just typed it now that I realized how much of a TV backlog I have. Damn you DDD sales! And I almost bought the 10 season set of Friends because after discount it would have been ~$160.

Plus, having a DVR now isn't helping, as I tend to watch new run series right away. At this rate I could let every series I'm currently watching go to DVD and still not be caught up.

But, it's not terribly expensive, and it's a great convenience to have something new always availble. I just try not to think about it too much.

But like Mark VH, I get caught up in watching my favorites at least once a year, like SW, LOTR, Harry Potter, Pixar stuff, Christmas films, so there are other films I love I haven't seen in a few years. Stuff like L.A. Confidential, Seven, Jacob's Ladder, and many others come to mind.

Not too mention my 10 or so unplayed PS2 games.

And then there's World Of Warcraft....the biggest timesink ever!

 

[Marko Berg]

Totally agree.

 

[PaulP]

It's agreed then. We petition to extend the customary 24-hour day to a minimum of 48 hours

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

I don't intentionally buy movies that I don't like. But probably 80-90% of the DVDs I do buy are of movies that I have never seen. But these purchases are well-researched, of course - on HTF or elsewhere.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

I put a DVD player and TV with 16:9 squeeze in my work out room just so I could at least watch a 45 minute episode every time I do the treadmill or recumbent bike. That should help, provided I get my butt in there.

 

[Kain_C]

I don't have many DVDs (over 300), but I have less than 5 that I haven't seen. And I have seen most discs several times. Plus I have a subscription to Netflix which I try to cycle through as quickly as possible. I have a full time job, a decent social life, an obsession with PC games, and a waaaay to occupying internet life. I still manage.

First off, I don't buy alot of movies I haven't seen. I save those for Netflix or Blockbuster (the latter which I haven't been to in months), especially newer films as most of them are not worth owning. Space, money, and the desire to have a collection I am proud of owning reinforce this idea. I do not collect movies just to have a collection; I collect them to WATCH them.

Secondly, I do not really care about extras or DTS or whatever if I simply do not like the movie. Why would I want to know more about a mediocre film?

I find myself watching a movie before I go to bed. I most likely cannot finish it in a day, so I will watch it a few nights until I do.

Someone asked about the point of having a shelf full of read library books or something like that. What's the point of having the shelf in the first place if you don't or aren't going to read the books??

 

[Laura Nicholson]

If I don't like a movie, I won't buy it. But I buy a lot of movies and some TV shows blind. I blame this site for all the blind buy recommendations.

The vast majority of my backlog is TV shows. Of the 54 shows I own, I've only watched 6 in their entirety.
My movies are better, only 117 out of 354 to watch.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

I have many hundreds of unwatched discs. It's nice. Plenty to do in my retirement.

I also buy lots of things I've never seen. That can be traced to a childhood in the 1960s, when I read about great movies and not-so-great movies all the time, but very seldom had a chance to see any of them, living on a farm out in the boondocks, with 2 television networks (3 if the wind's blowing right) and nothing else to choose from. So I'm still gratifying a childhood obsession by accumulating all these movies I've read good things about but never got to see. And it's a terrific time. Very, very few of these (virtually none) have I ever regretted.