How Do You Catalog Your BD's? (1 Viewer)

[PMF]

I suspect our movie catalog system keeps changing.
Originally, mine was grouped under Best Cinematography, Criterion titles and then there were the rest.
Later, it turned into bodies of work. Lean, Kubrick, Chaplin, et al.
But as the collection grew, it was back to Best Cinematography; adding the AFI Top 100's, and key restorations.
Yet, I had to deal with those miscellaneous titles; leading to nothing thematic and altogether a listless clump.
Well, I found that as the collection grew that many of the titles overlapped and could not be confined to just one category.
Alphabetical, perhaps? Maybe chronologically by release year.
Well, not on the shelves;
as that approach was visually just too boring, except within my 3-ring binder of about a dozen print-out sheets.
Ah, I know, I'll group everything into spine uniformity; TT, Criterion, WAC, Kino, Digibooks, etc.
Somehow, I know when a snowstorm sets in and keeps me cooped up at home for a couple of days that this may change, again.

So, how do you catalog your BD's and other physical media?

 

[Dave B Ferris]

Mostly by genre, with the exception of a handful of directors (for movies), such as Hitchcock and Wilder, or actors (again for movies) such as Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart. In those cases, their works are gathered, regardless of genre.

 

[atfree]

I have two major categories that I separate: War Movies and Westerns as those are my two "go-to" genres. Within those genre categories, I have a few sub-categories (John Wayne, etc). After that, I try to keep each director together, and I do have Christmas movies separate as well. After that, pretty random. I feel like I could drive myself crazy by trying to categorize (and sub-categorize) every film.

 

[dpippel]

Alphabetically. Simple, straightforward, and anyone in my family can easily find the movie they're looking for.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

By height.

 

[Alan Tully]

I just bung mine on a shelf, they're all over the place, it seems that I have an untidy mind. The upshot of that is, when I'm looking for a particular title to look at I usually come across a film I wasn't even thinking about (& forgotten I had), & watch that one instead.

 

[Konstantinos]

well, it's somehow by mixed standards:
by label or case (Arrow, Criterion, Twilight Time/steelbook, digibook, box-sets etc.) and then alphabetically in each category.

Some categories are more powerful than others.
meaning: an Arrow Steelbook will go to the Steelbook category and not the Arrow category.

My favourite category is the Ghibli COlorful Japanese Blurays!
This is not my photo, i don't have them all yet:

 

[Dick]

I have created several data bases for all of my discs. The first, my master database, is a 15-column, fully cross-reference-sort-ready list of all of over 4,000 Blu-rays and DVD's, that include title, year of release, running time, aspect ratio, sound format, director, studio, b&w/color/3D, coded numeric special features list, format of the disc, and two lead performers. There I can sort my collection by year of release, by director, by studio, etc. also have a separate database of all movies I have stored in 104-disc storage cases rather than on shelves in their original keep cases, including one column for titles and the other for case I.D. and slot #. As long as I keep these up to date and backed-up, I'll be in good shape and can find anything almost instantly. These data bases were created in WordPerfect over the past fifteen years, and I've always been happy enough with it not have bothered with ($$$) retail video programs that essentially do the same thing.

 

[BobO'Link]

I started off with them by genre - Western, Historical, Fantasy, SF, Horror, Comedy, Adventure, and Christmas with a few by director or actor (generally if they came in a set), and that's still mostly in place. Then I ran out of shelf space and my wife, thinking she'd curtail my purchases, proclaimed there was no more room for CD/DVD shelving (there is... but I let her think otherwise for now) so the overage is simply sitting around in various piles with no particular order other than the sequence in which they were watched.

They are all in my database. I use EMDB (Eric's Movie Database), a shareware application that pulls its data from IMDB. It does good enough for me at the moment.

 

[battlebeast]

By best picture nomination year. All others alphabetically, except tv shows and Disney animated classics.

 

[Rob_Ray]

Mine are alphabetical for silents, talkies and TV shows. Exceptions include box sets, filed alphabetically in a separate cabinet by subject and the special series of releases with numbered spines for which I have the entire complete run, such as the Fox Classic DVD Series, Fox Noir Series, etc.

 

[jra66]

All of my movies are in Binders. Each Decade has it's own binder(s). Then Alphabetical.

I also have a separate 320 disc binder for Franchises/Sequels. The Bond movies and Star Trek movies really screwed up my decade system!

When choosing a movie, the first question I ask myself is, what decade am I in the mood for.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

As follows:
By format [4K UHD titles and 3D titles have their own sections]
By programming type [movies, concert videos]
Criterions also have their own section
Boxsets are their own category as well. The packaging varies so much that it's difficult to keep them together with single titles.

 

[Brandon Conway]

- Criterion by Spine #, BD and DVD mixed (about 95% BD at this point)
- Eclipse DVD by Spine #, Essential Art House DVDs alphabetically
- Feature films alphabetically, BD and DVD mixed (about 90-95% BD at this point). Franchise series are categorized alphabetically by their main nomenclature - "James Bond", "Marvel Cinematic" "Planet of the Apes"
- TV alphabetically, BD and DVD mixed (about 50/50 still)
- Special Interest alphabetically, BD and DVD mixed (also 50/50). This includes short film compilations, music video compilation, sports videos, concerts, etc.

 

[lark144]

My girlfriend Bonny was very interested by this thread. She used to find it odd that Mrs. Hudson's (a video store on Hudson Street in NYC) arranged movies by the date they arrived in the store. Though this ended up being just fine once she (Bonny, not Mrs. Hudson) got used to it.

Now Bonny wants me to organize my Blu ray collection by mood or color. For instance, sometimes she wants a movie with brightly colored paper dresses, but there's not too many of those.Then again, some movies fall into different moods, like BLOW UP, for instance, which could be happy (due to the colorful fashions) or kind of dark (due to the mystery). Then again, one of the categories Bonny would like to use is "colorful" which makes this more complicated.

As for me, I have everything alphabetical by title. That's really the only way I can find things. I imagine what I will end up doing is making a data base of films based on mood. But, as Bonny just told me, the only problem is the same movie can generate seventeen different moods.

 

[Mike Frezon]

But, as Bonny just told me, the only problem is the same movie can generate seventeen different moods.

Much the same as it is often difficult to pigeonhole certain movies into specific genres...

 

[Dave B Ferris]

My girlfriend Bonny was very interested by this thread. She used to find it odd that Mrs. Hudson's (a video store on Hudson Street in NYC) arranged movies by the date they arrived in the store. Though this ended up being just fine once she (Bonny, not Mrs. Hudson) got used to it.

Now Bonny wants me to organize my Blu ray collection by mood or color. For instance, sometimes she wants a movie with brightly colored paper dresses, but there's not too many of those.Then again, some movies fall into different moods, like BLOW UP, for instance, which could be happy (due to the colorful fashions) or kind of dark (due to the mystery). Then again, one of the categories Bonny would like to use is "colorful" which makes this more complicated.

As for me, I have everything alphabetical by title. That's really the only way I can find things. I imagine what I will end up doing is making a data base of films based on mood. But, as Bonny just told me, the only problem is the same movie can generate seventeen different moods.

Has Bonny been introduced to Jacques Demy's films?

 

[Worth]

Alphabetically, except for sequels/series. In that case, alphabetically for the first title, then chronologically for subsequent entries.

 

[Suzanne.S]

I use Movie Collector by Collectorz.com. (I also use their Book & Music databases as well.) I have over 6700 titles so it's alphabetical. My movies are in banker boxes that have labels on each side with a number. I have attempted to group like movies in boxes mostly by genre. In Movie Collector, there is a field for location and Iput the box number there. That way I can find things.

The ultimate dream is to either put an addition on the house or convert the garage, so that we can have a theater room with enough shelving for this monstrous collection. If I ever get to do that, I would go mostly alphabetical with a few exceptions, James Bond (they are currently in chronological order on the hall shelf), Alfred Hitchcock (I'd also like to have room to display all my books on Hitch), Doctor Who (those are listed by Story number, basically chronological) and perhaps Disney.

The problem crops up when you have multi-film sets that are not all the same title or really a series. Where do those go? I haven't decided on those yet. I've got plenty of time, I don't see the home improvement project on the horizon yet.

 

[lark144]

Has Bonny been introduced to Jacques Demy's films?

Bonny has seen both THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG & THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT. She particularly liked THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT because the clothes the dancers were wearing matched the colors of the buildings. Plus the film had a very happy feeling.