hotandserious' 6000+ BRD/DVD Storage Solution Gallery (1 Viewer)

Hi There -

I made a short video showing how I've squeezed 6000+ Blus & DVDs into my apartment with the intent of helping folks who may be facing storage issues.

It's a little shaky & the audio could be louder, so apologies...



I also took a few photos...

Fortunately, my wife and I have a large living room in our apartment, so it doubles as our home theater.
The back wall is where we keep all of our discs.




DVDs that don't come in traditional cases go on the shelving units mounted on the wall.




We can't easily reach the top shelf, so boxes on the very top are empty and for display only.




I primarily collect older films and 3D discs.




Here are some Blu-ray 3D discs in one of our three large spinning towers.
These towers are the largest capacity I've been able to find.




Each tower has a capacity of 756 DVDs, but since blu-rays in the USA
come in thinner cases, you can get 34 BRDs per shelf. With 7 shelves per side
(when spaced equally), that comes to a capacity of 952 blu-rays.



The towers are represented as holding more (1056 Blu-rays),
so technically you could stack a few in on their sides, etc - but it will look a bit awkward.
Results will be different with thicker UK BRD cases, etc.




Here's a detail of the center shelving with some Arrow Video Blus, Cinerama movies,
and a couple of Charlton Heston epics.



Center shelves and more 3D Blu-rays.



This cart fits nicely under the center shelves.




More 3D discs and some EC slipcased box sets on the bookshelf to the right.




More books.




DVDS that originally came in cases have their cases removed,
are inserted in vinyl sleeves, and are filed in these drawers.




I had the drawers custom made. We use divider cards to organize by genre, star or director.




Myrna Loy rates a divider.




Here are some DVDs in the vinyl sleeves.




...and some Blu-Rays in the vinyl sleeves too.



I talk a bit about how I arrived at this storage system in the video link up at the top. It will also give you a better look at the discs and a quick overview of the room including our ceiling-mounted projector and screen.

If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!

Very impressive. Really, VERY impressive, and beautifully designed.

One quick question, and apologies if you answered this above or in the video. What kind of system do you have for (1) finding out quickly whether you already have something, and (2) looking up a title to find where it's stored? In other words, it looks like you could have a given title filed under a star's name, director's name, genre, a series such as Criterion, the format it's released in, etc. In fact, just speaking of Criterion, I see some stored in three or four different places according to their size/format or whatever. I didn't wonder this so much until you showed us pictures of the file drawers, and that's where my mind began to boggle. So is this all in your head, do you use software, or what?

Thanks a lot Charles. I had a lot of fun designing the set-up within the space I had to work with.

For keeping a tab on what I have, I use DVDpedia for Mac and it is great.
http://www.bruji.com/dvdpedia/

I know it seems nuts, but other hardcore collectors will be able to relate to this - I am very specific about what I buy, and so I don't really have a problem with accidentally buying something twice. I know what I have very well.

As for where things go, it's pretty much all by my personal preference. If you watched the video, all of the Criterion Blu-Rays are together on one spinner with the exception of the three Hitchcock releases which I placed beside some of my other Hitchcock Blu-rays (with classic Hollywood movies in a different location on the spinner) and "Pina" which is kept with the 3D Blus.

DVDs get a little more complicated - again, I mention this in the video, but all of the Criterion DVDs in fat cases and special packaging are incompatible with the sleeve system in the drawers, so those all have a general section together on one of the spinners (except for a few that I have on the shelves in another area - LOL - I need to move them).

In the drawers, there is a "Criterion Collection" divider, but I also have a "Crime: Criterion Film Noir" divider to subdivide things a bit further. From there, if there is a particular director or actor that I'm especially fond of and they have their own section, I generally move the applicable films there. And so on and so on...

Incredibly it works for me - LOL - and I'm generally able to find anything I'm looking for very quickly.

I'd hire you to come to MD and do that same setup in my basement! Really impressive!

Mark,

A huge welcome to our forum.

I am speechless after looking at your media room and collection.

I sincerely hope that you like what you see here and will continue to
contribute and share your enthusiasm for film, DVD and Blu-rays with
other members here.

I also use DVDPedia and duplicate everything on DVDProfiler when I
run Windows inside my Mac. You will agree when dealing with such
a large library (and yours is even larger than mine) it's good to have
more than one filed listing of what you have.

Once again, welcome aboard. You just made my day with those photos.

I've known people who throw cases away and keep DVDs, CDs, etc., in binders or drawers or what not, but in spite of the enormous amount of shelf space taken up by discs, that has just never been for me.

Until perhaps ... now.

Because I have to say that this is the first time I've ever sat looking at someone's pictures, and begun to entertain the sleeve idea as, well, maybe possible for some of it. Maybe.

Thanks Sam - and thanks Ron!

Your comments made MY day

I do go way back with the forum, and was always around for the Warner Chats, held my breath for years waiting for the Bowery Boys and Jean Harlow sets from the WB (got Jean - still haven't picked up the Boys!) and participated a fair amount. - - But I've been primarily a lurker over the last few years and thought I'd go ahead and refresh my ID to go along with this post.

I will try to be a bit more active from here on out. This has always been one of my favorite forums!

Thanks again,

Mark / hotandserious

Awesome to hear! Glad to see another lurker decloaked, you're obviously very passionate about films and collecting, bet you've got some experiences we all could learn from!

Charles Smith said:

I've known people who throw cases away and keep DVDs, CDs, etc., in binders or drawers or what not, but in spite of the enormous amount of shelf space taken up by discs, that has just never been for me.

Until perhaps ... now.

Because I have to say that this is the first time I've ever sat looking at someone's pictures, and begun to entertain the sleeve idea as, well, maybe possible for some of it. Maybe.

Click to expand...

Charles - I'm 100% with you. I could never, ever, EVER separate the art from the discs, stick them in binders, crop up the art for up for slim cases (I talk about that a bit in the video) - they are just too damn precious to me - LOL.

But I'm a believer in the DVD poly sleeves. The art can be replaced into the case later on and it really looks good as new.

I've lived with this solution for years now, and it is great to grab a big fistful of DVDs and just flip through the art work...

Two "pro-tips" (LOL):

1) DVDs in the now (thankfully) defunct snap cases have artwork that is just a little too big to fit in the sleeves with the spine facing forward. They will fit with the spine facing backwards, but I wanted them to be consistent. So I use a heavy duty paper cutter and trim about 1/8 - 1/16th of an inch off the right side to get 'em in there. I've never had to cut so deep that I lost any essential art or typography and I don't think anyone would ever notice. The Something Weird dvd I show in the video was originally in a snap case.

2) WARNING: Warner Archive and MOD paper artwork sticks to the sleeves over time! This was a BIG bummer. Because they are printed differently, the ink eventually adheres to the inside of the sleeve. The solution I've found is to cut the clear plastic off of the original DVD case and put that between the sleeve and the art. I also spray the printed side of the sleeves with hairspray, which was an old art school trick for protecting drawings from smudging, etc. Not sure if that is necessary, but I wanted to be safe.

If anyone is interested, I got both the sleeves and dividers from bags unlimited.

Here is their general dvd section:
https://www.bagsunlimited.com/c-458-dvd-supplies.aspx

Dividers are here:
https://www.bagsunlimited.com/c-142-dvd-dividers.aspx

I ordered these specific divders:
https://www.bagsunlimited.com/p-5300-blank-dvd-divider-cards-40-gauge-polystyrene.aspx

- - - - and just used sticker laser printer paper to make my labels.

-and this is their DVD sleeves section:
https://www.bagsunlimited.com/c-69-dvd-poly-sleeves.aspx

I use these:
https://www.bagsunlimited.com/p-4217-dvd-vinyl-gatefold-sleeves.aspx

They also have some with two pockets for double discs, but I use single disc envelopes for second discs.

If you plan on ordering a very large qty, it may be worth giving them a call and asking if they will give you a better discount than you see on the website.

Mark / hotandserious

This is super-neat. Look forward to watching the video when I'm not on hotel wifi.

Wow, Mark. Beautiful. The first thing I'd go for might be those EC's, though!

I'm interested in the spinning towers and wondering if you have the exact dimensions? Did you get them somewhere or were they also custom jobs?

Collection looks amazing. I've toyed with investing in those flat sleeves in order to contract my collection but I've got a nice selection of discs in the nice outer slip-cases (the Fox Classics and Marquee Musicals, etc).

Pete York said:

Wow, Mark. Beautiful. The first thing I'd go for might be those EC's, though!

I'm interested in the spinning towers and wondering if you have the exact dimensions? Did you get them somewhere or were they also custom jobs?

Click to expand...

Hi Pete -

Thanks a lot! The EC slipcases are probably my most prized possessions. I have a complete set except for the EC Library edition of Mad. Fortunately DC has issued 4 volumes of the Mad Archives and that covers all of the stuff in the original Russ Cochran sets, plus the first magazine-sized issue to boot!
As for the towers, they are very nice.
The space savings you get out of just one of these things is pretty darn amazing.

These are the spinners I have (Venture Horizon 2393):
http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Horizo.../dp/B000RK53RI

Item Weight 125 pounds
Product Dimensions 24 x 24 x 63 inches

I think I found them cheaper than this amazon listing (and in white), so it may be worth shopping around.

I did make two modifications:

1) The actual boards that act as shelves are a bit thin. I found that they started to bow in the center after a while and that drove me nuts. The boards just slide in and out of the unit, so I had new interior shelves cut that were thicker.

2) When loaded up, the spinner shelf is heavy - and over time, the little plastic spinner wheel that rotates on the base board started digging in to the wood base - bits of saw dust started emanating from the bottom of the tower! I had a thin metal plate cut to size and placed it right under the spinner wheel so it would spin on the metal rather than the wood. That solved the problem.

Hope that helps!

DaveF said:

This is super-neat. Look forward to watching the video when I'm not on hotel wifi.

Click to expand...

Thanks Dave! The video is a real DIY type of affair, recorded w/ my smartphone, but I tried my best to make it worth the ten minutes of viewing time.

classicmovieguy said:

Collection looks amazing. I've toyed with investing in those flat sleeves in order to contract my collection but I've got a nice selection of discs in the nice outer slip-cases (the Fox Classics and Marquee Musicals, etc).

Click to expand...

Hi classicmovieguy. Yes - I totally understand!

I left the slipcased Fox Classics and Marquee Musicals on the shelf rather than putting them in the poly sleeves in the drawers because the slipcases are so nice.

You can see some of them in the photos and the video. In pic #3, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Fantastic Voyage and The Lost World are all visible and facing forward w/ the front displayed. I kept Pigskin Parade on the shelf by the Mickey and Judy and Fred and Ginger box sets too.

DVDs that have standard slipcovers, I simply store flat, but those Fox slipcases are really something special.

Mark / hotandserious