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How do you sort your collection? (1 Viewer)

Ruz-El

Fake Shemp
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I use no alphabetical system at all. Isort by Directors, and Chronologically withen the directors, but not strictly, as I don't break up boxsets, or series of films (like James Bond ((if I actually owned any of the JAmes Bond)) but if a groupd of pictures in the boxset is by a certain director, I well put the single discs from that director by the box set. I seperate tv shows from movies, Disney is usually grouped together irregardles of if it's from TV or movies, and concert, music and wrestling DVD's are usually relegated their own spot. The goups of films by directors are lumped in any way that they fit best on a shelf.

This seemingly willy nilly approach might not be pleasing to the eye, but I like it, and usually surprise guests when I put a watched disc back where it belongs (where I KNOW it belongs!) on the shelf. Of course, those guests would laugh when I would spot some sorting errors caused by the guests themselves to see if I was nutty enough to notice. It used to drive my wife nuts to, so I left her*. So yeah, grouped chronologically by director works for me! My collection is currently in boxes until I get settled, and I actually can't wait to buy more shelves so I can spend an afternoon resorting my whole collection when I get some new digs!


*Okay, that's not the ONLY reason we parted ways ;) I'm not that much of an obssive creep!
 

Elizabeth S

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Since my space limitations haven't allowed me to organize as desired, my later purchases are pretty much in haphazard disarray right now.

However, my ideal organization would divide into categories as follows:

English language films
Foreign language films
Music
TV

And alphabetically therein.
 

MarkHastings

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I'm sure most of us started this way because of the case differences. I originally started alphabetically (in the late 90's), but I couldn't STAND the way things looked, so I put all of my WB and New Lines together. This looked so good that I started doing it with other studios as well...now I'm hooked.

Of course, the only excpetions are with music, TV, & documentary DVD's, etc. - They all get sorted together in their own place.
 

Glenn Overholt

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Ditto for studio, director, year and genre. Yuck! I have tried, and failed again and again, to sort mine any way but alphabetically. I do have a seperate section for music DVD's, and TV episodes, but this does depend on how many you have. If you only have one documentary, isn't it going to get lonely? :)

No matter how you arrange them, the time will come when you get another one, and have to squeeze it in. Of course, if you have every movie that a studio, director, etc. ever put out, then I guess you're ok. But that would be like a huge box set. No one is going to put season one of TNG apart from season two, unless you're doing this by year, but a TV season runs from September through May, and that covers 2 years. What then? And you're going to get the Lethal Weapon boxset and split it up?

Oh, so not for boxsets? We already have an exception. What happens when a title is passed from one studio to another? Should the SE of Star Wars go in the year 1997 (with the other two), or in 1977? Is Spaceballs a comedy or Sci-Fi?
Oh, and does anybody have their made for TV movies apart from the rest?

No, this might work if you don't have very many DVD's, but after a few hundred it gets really, really messy.

Glenn
 

MarkHarrison

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I'm out of space at this point. So my TV and box sets and large collections (Fox Studio Classics, Trek, etc) are in one area. My primary DVD area is grouped by odd cases (neither keep case or snappers), then snappers, then keep cases. Each section is alphabetical.

The kids movies and my wifes stuff is half upstairs and half downstairs at this point because my stuff is over-running everything else.

I deperately need some more storage at this point. The problem is we have a 2 year old and I refuse to get anything that can't be locked up.

It's a crappy system at the moment, but I know exactly where everything is. :)
 

John Alderson

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I love threads that show there are others as neurotic as I am. :)

I have roughly 300 titles all told. The films are by themselves sorted alphabetically, with four exceptions: all Hitchcocks (48 of 'em) are on their own "wing" of the shelf, sorted by release date (my wife hates that); Star Trek films are with the two complete seasons of TOS and TNG on another "wing;" the five Star Wars films and the LOTR EE's sit on top of the shelf, as they are the overlords of the collection.

The rest of my stuff: Sex and the City, various Patriots and Red Sox championship DVD's (how I love typing that), Star Wars OOT Laserdic rip, and music DVD's are in a drawer. In order to be in the "film" cabinet it must be released theatrically, which is why "Led Zeppelin DVD" is in the drawer with the plebes but "Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains The Same" is in between Lawrence of Arabia and Life Aquatic.

The coolest sorting I ever saw was by a friend in college. He sorted his CD's by the color of the rainbow: ROYGBIV (with black on one end and white on the other). It looked *awesome* but was friggin impossible to find anything.
 

Harold Wazzu

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I keep all of my boxsets/TV shows separate as well as my superbits and criterions. The rest are alphabetical but am looking to change it up as I am getting bored at how my dvds look on the shelves.

I would separate by what is OOP also but sooner or later everything will be OOP.
 

Paul Hillenbrand

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Glenn Overholt wrote:

That's why I like software like "DVD Profiler". You can electronically organize your collection in almost every or any of the ways that have been mentioned here - {I don't know about rainbows?:eek:}, on paper lists, by picture art, or both - and then go right to the chosen title that would be physically stored alphabetically.

The only way this wouldn't work for someone, would be for those people who want their physical collection to also look like a work of art. i.e. Aesthetics.

Paul
 

Glenn Overholt

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I think they're just talking about shelf arrangement. For a small collection this works well, but I'm over 1000 now, and that is a lot of shelf space. I have my cases in some plastic containers with lids that snap on. One case is just A through C, and the next one starts at D, and so on.

I use an Excel spreadsheet for any other sorting that I might want to go through. A few times I've wanted to see an 'old' movie, so I just change the Excel sheet to sort by year, and I'm all set.

Glenn
 

Dan Lindley

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I used to have them splayed by spine color, along the spectrum, but that didn't help too much.

So now it is by genre:
French/foreign
Horror
Action
War (lots, so in chrono order by war)
Sci fi
Music
Family/grown up humor, detective, drama, etc. NEC
ST/STNG
TV me (space 1999, UFO, etc)
TV kids Clutch Cargo, Speed Racer, etc) in with
Kids animation and
Kids non/fiction, Imax, etc.

Makes sense for me, as that's how I look for things.

Dan

EDIT: Shoulda said the first sent wasn't true... didn't do that. Colorblind really, that and my gammy leg...
 

Deepak Shenoy

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I have my entire collection of about 400 DVDs broken into 3 sections - Criterions, Classics (pre-70s) and Contemporary films.

The Criterions are organized based on original language and further sub-divided based on director. Spine numbers don't work for me (and I am not a completist).

Classics and contemporary films are each organized alphabetically but I separate the keepcases from the snappers to make the DVD rows more even.

-D
 

Jeff D Han

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I used to have all of my multi-disc movies and sets
seperate from the single disc DVDs, but it got to be
a pain to keep up with logging in new titles into my
Microsoft Access program, so I now have almost all of my
collection in alphabetical order on 4 shelves next to the
living room. I have my TV season sets in the bedroom.
 

Michael Qualen

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I sort by studio too...always have, always will. I just like the look of it with (most of) the spines matching. Also, IF I organized alphabetically, I would have snappers and amarays all mixed together...and that would just look bad (to me)
 

Bonnie*F

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Alphabetical with TV series box sets on a separate shelf (of course the shelf is 9 feet long! - runs along the top of three other book shelves):D
 

Will Krupp

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EEk! I'm afraid I'm one of those confounding people. And yes, it does matter to me that a film released in May 1976 be stored before a film released in July 1976. My reasoning (I think)is because part of my enjoyment of film as a whole has a lot to do with the cultural time in which a given film was released. This way (if I'm in the mood--and even I'm surprised at how many times I am) I can say, what would my choices be if this were Christmas 1939?

It's totally weird I know (and I DO get strange looks from just about everybody who knows me) but it seemed a totally natural thing since I bought my first dvds.

My partner never even puts dvds back because he knows that I'm the only one who knows where they go. He used to think he was a smartass and would purposely switch some around to see if I would notice (I always spotted em')

The ONLY downside (and it's only become a problem recently) is that I have to split boxsets. I never minded splitting them up until the beautiful Warner Boxsets like Joan Crawford and the Thin Man. I hate throwing away the unique cover art on these sets so they are currently sitting empty.

TV sets are stored separately (at the end of the collection.) They are stored ROUGHLY in chronological order, but all of the sets are kept together.

It's comforting to know that there are others as obsessive as myself. :b
 

Jeff_HR

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My music, & documentary & other DVD's such as Star Trek get their own area, but TV stuff goes in the proper Studio spot.
 

Kevin M

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:)....yeah....I guess we are just weird compared to the other anal retentive ways of sorting films, huh?:rolleyes:;)

Well it works for me & yes, sometimes I DO feel like watching a film from the 70's rather than a classic from the 40's or slasher from the 80's. Plus I have had a love of films since early childhood so most of these films have a definite chronological nostalgia for me (at least in the years I was alive & remember seeing them in theaters, I can't remember my first TV viewing of Dr. Strangelove for instance) so keeping them in the years that I have a fond memories of seeing them might have something to do with it, but I have to admit that this is only the latest way of sorting them I have tried, aside from rainbow I have tried most every way that has been mentioned for all of the reasons mentioned....this is what I have found that suits me best.

Again, it works for me & that is what counts In the end.
 

Michael Qualen

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What counts is whatever works for you...If sorting your DVD´s by the maiden name of the key grips mother works for you, so be it.....I dont think anyone should decide what is best for someone else :)
 

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