Overloaded on DVD's (1 Viewer)

[Mark Talmadge]

This is shameful to me, as well. I've gotten to the point where I'm extremely selective to what shows I've been buying. While I have a pretty good sized library, I don't buy all of those shows that I really want. I've actually stopped buying those shows on DVD that are fairly recent shows, like Lost and House and have just stayed with collecting those shows that I grew up watching like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and Gilligan's Island.

There's just too much crap out there to worry about and it's the fault of the studios for not finding better ways to condense the size of these sets. Personally, I'd rather be able to buy a set that contains the complete series on a few disks, single sided. The problem is that studios are busy cutting the number of DVD's in a boxed set by using both sides of the disk to eliminate the number of disks they are using while keeping the same retail price.

This is why I have eliminated 95% of my purchases for new shows. The studios continuisly cut their costs on DVD sets and they don't pass those savings onto the consumer and that's what's harming the market. The only shows that are currently broadcasting as new episodes that I purchase are basically, Bones, NCIS (the original series), 24, Leverage and Grey's Anatomy. I just refuse to support the studios anymore.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Ugh...here we go:

The Addams Family: Saw all of season 1; haven't gotten around to season 2.
Ally McBeal Complete Series: Have it, will marathon at some point.
Beverly Hills, 90210: Watching for the 10th and final season before I marathon the whole series (something I've always wanted to do. Yes, it's a sickness).
Bewitched: Happily plugging away thru season 8 now.
Dallas: Lost interest at the beginning of season 7. Will get to the rest someday
Dark Angel: have it...never watched it
Family Ties: wtf is wrong with me...I wanted this show more than anyone, and I've barely made it halfway thru season one.
Get Smart: I have season 1 & 2: it's all right...not as funny as I'd remembered
Gossip Girl: Have seasons 1 & 2: haven't gotten around to them. Maybe by the time season 3 comes out? lol
Knot's Landing: I have them; I wish there'd be a few more season before I start to watch
Melrose Place: Waiting for it to be completed (I hope) then I will marathon.
Party of Five: I have the 3 seasons, have seen about 1/2 of season 1. Kind of lost interest when Sony stopped delivering.

Reba: Started season 3: it's very, very easy to watch this show!
Roswell: Saw it all when it originally aired; I never did get around to watching the dvds, although I do have them.
South of Nowhere: I have the first two sets, waiting for the dang price to drop on set 3 (it's like $55!!) then I will marathon the whole series.
That 70s Show: Barely started season 1; and the first 6 seasons are on HUGE discount at Target. I will definitely get around to watching them, just not this second.
Three's Company: Lost interest in the dvds midway through season 7. That's funny, because that's about when I lost interest during the original airings, and stopped watching. Maybe one of these fine days I'll actually watch the dvds of all those episodes I've never even seen??? lol

 

[Jeff Willis]

Howie,

I also have a large CD collection but I've found that XM & Sirius Satt radio is a gold mine of listening pleasure. I have DirecTV and they carry a lot of the stations on their system. Commercial-free as far as I've heard, on the ones that I listen to, mainly the Jazz stations.


I don't know how many of the major cable providers carry the satt radio services but perhaps your cable provider carries some of them.

 

[bmasters9]

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley

Family Ties: wtf is wrong with me...I wanted this show more than anyone, and I've barely made it halfway thru season one.
Get Smart: I have season 1 & 2: it's all right...not as funny as I'd remembered

I feel your pain about "Family Ties"-- that's kind of hard to look at. I haven't even finished the first disc.

As for "Get Smart," I agree with you about that. I thought that it would be very funny and fast-paced, but it's very, very slow.

 

[AnthonyC]

I'm not buying nearly as many sets anymore, but I still do have a backlog to go through. I rarely find myself watching extras anymore--not because I don't want to but it's more important to go through the episodes/movies themselves. Lately the problem has transfered over to CDs as well--even though I can easily listen while multi-tasking (I spend enough time on the computer for it), for some reason I constantly delay it. I think it took more than two months for me to finally listen to the second disc of Michael Jackson's HIStory.

 

[RickER]

Nah, i dont have that problem. Dont know what you guys are talking about.


Guess i should get off here and watch something.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Right now, according to the excel list I keep, I have just over 500 unwatched titles in my collection. That includes 70 full or half season TV sets, so there is conservatively 750 discs I need to watch.
And more on the way.

The first movie media I collected were Laserdiscs, back when I was younger and had far more limited funds available.
That experience cemented the impression in me that movies were worth $40-125 to own in a high quality format.
And that was just for movies. The only TV content on that format I remember was the 2 eps to a disc Star Treks, or $500-$1000 multi disc imports from Japan.
So when I see a loaded Criterion edition going for $14 at B&N, or the full, complete Prisoner series in High Def for $35- my brain screams "LOAD UP"!

Bargains are one reason, the other is the ephemeral nature of this business model. The number of beloved movies/TV shows I have now on disc that already gone Out-of-Print is staggering. Most of these will NOT see a reissue on DVD or Bd. They have too limited a niche appeal. They'll show up on VOD at some point, but for physical media, they're time has come and gone. I hoard now because some day the spigot is going to get shut off completely.

_____________

actually, now that I think about it, the first format I collected was Super 8 as a kid. I would go into K-Mart or Two Guys and see a 14 minute digest version of Star Wars or Superman and it would run almost $50. The prices I paid for Laserdiscs years later were a bargain in comparision

 

[Elena S]

We kept forgetting which episodes we'd last watched of our shows, so we started keeping a notebook and writing down the disk number and ep title, and even the date we watched. That helps speed things along. Do we watch too many DVDs or what?

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by bmasters9



I feel your pain about "Family Ties"-- that's kind of hard to look at. I haven't even finished the first disc.

As for "Get Smart," I agree with you about that. I thought that it would be very funny and fast-paced, but it's very, very slow.

I know! I bought the first two seasons of Get Smart in that Target gift set for $20; watched 4 eps and was already getting bored. And I have 56 episodes to go. Yesterday I was at Target again and they had season 3 and 4 for only $12.99 each--and I couldn't work up the enthusiasm to get them either And Family Ties...I still think it's good and I was actually laughing, but I dunno...maybe too much time has passed for me to really get into this show like I was back in 1982. It was my favorite sitcom during its first couple years yet today I felt totally ambivalent towards watching it again.

Ah well maybe one of these days---

 

[bmasters9]

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley



I know! I bought the first two seasons of Get Smart in that Target gift set for $20; watched 4 eps and was already getting bored. And I have 56 episodes to go. Yesterday I was at Target again and they had season 3 and 4 for only $12.99 each--and I couldn't work up the enthusiasm to get them either And Family Ties...I still think it's good and I was actually laughing, but I dunno...maybe too much time has passed for me to really get into this show like I was back in 1982. It was my favorite sitcom during its first couple years yet today I felt totally ambivalent towards watching it again.

Ah well maybe one of these days---

I got that "Get Smart" 2-pack myself. It took awhile, but I got through it, I think. I'm working on #3 now. Another thing that's holding me up is "Sanford and Son" #1. It's only 14 episodes, but at 26 min. apiece, with no scene selection, that's taking a good long while.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Originally Posted by Elena S ">[/url]

We kept forgetting which episodes we'd last watched of our shows, so we started keeping a notebook and writing down the disk number and ep title, and even the date we watched. That helps speed things along. Do we watch too many DVDs or what?

 

[DavidHAN]

Originally Posted by bmasters9



I feel your pain about "Family Ties"-- that's kind of hard to look at. I haven't even finished the first disc.

As for "Get Smart," I agree with you about that. I thought that it would be very funny and fast-paced, but it's very, very slow.

Family Ties is not a show I watched and thankfully not on my list of must haves.
I am behind, but it is fun collecting and looking at my wall of dvd's. Movies and TV.

I bought the Get Smart set from Time Life right out of the gate and man what a let down.
As a kid I couldn't wait to watch it. My eleven year old likes it a lot.
I can only watch a few eps at a time, whereas she can watch the same episode over and over.
We have to compromise. Two eps of Get Smart and then anything else. Luckily she likes Star Trek, so we can move on to that.

Really, the problem with GS is, all the eps are really the same episode.
Max doing something silly. Max getting an assignment and doing something silly.
Max getting in trouble doing something silly. Max solving the case, usually doing something silly.

Now, here's a wtf for ya.
I won't start watching a series I own completely because I don't want it to end. I've got plenty of completes. (37 series w/3 or more seasons, 45 series w/2 or less seasons-in other words-CANCELED) Not to mention 82 series in current production or not finished releasing all seasons. (Some may not finish, but there is hope). It's not like I'm going to run out of things to watch.
I have to be losing my mind. LOL

As for purchasing more? Money is the issue, and I buy on sale most of the time.
Get Smart a regretful Time Life full price.
I'm over it.
At least my daughter likes it.

 

[Gary OS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidHAN

I bought the Get Smart set from Time Life right out of the gate and man what a let down. As a kid I couldn't wait to watch it.

Really, the problem with GS is, all the eps are really the same episode.
Max doing something silly. Max getting an assignment and doing something silly.
Max getting in trouble doing something silly. Max solving the case, usually doing something silly.

As for purchasing more? Money is the issue, and I buy on sale most of the time.
Get Smart a regretful Time Life full price. I'm over it.

You read my mind on GET SMART. Of all the purchases I've made on dvd, this one was the biggest, money-wise, mistake I've made. I bought it from Time-Life immediately upon release thinking, like you, that I'd love it just like I did when I was a kid. Not so. It just didn't hold up for me at all and I really regret sinking all that money into it. There are other sets I've bought that I regret more based on the show itself not holding up (even more than GET SMART) or because of the poor transfer quality, but penny for penny the GET SMART set was my biggest regret because it was so expensive and I'm not enjoying it like I thought I would.


Gary "that set really is the one that caused me to reevaluate my dvd spending" O.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Although it's looking like this is turning into a "Get Smart - why did I buy it" thread , I have to agree. I bought the Time-Life set and wouldn't have bought it if I had it to it over again. I like the show but agree with the posts here. This show is one that I loved in the 60's but it didn't stand the test of time as much as I'd hoped for me. I'm going to complete the megaset but it'll be slower-going than most of my other sets. I'm at Disc 2 in S3 at present. What I've found with this one, is that I can only watch 1 30-min episode at at time. That's not really unusual for me since I'm not a marathon TV/DVD viewer anyway but when I get a set from the shelf that's a 30-min show, I usually watch 2 back to back to make about a hour of viewing time. I don't do that with GS. The main reason I regret the T/L buy is the price at the time. As we all know, if one waits, we'll get these TV/DVD sets at a lower price, in some cases, much lower.

I like to support releses as much as anyone else but budgets are budgets, that's the cold facts of life for a lot of us.

That said, I didn't wait at all for my holy grail "Combat!". I boought all of those right out of hte gate. From looking at DD's pricing, I'd have saved about $60 if I'd waited for the megaset release but then that's using the current DD sales prices.

With the GS pricing comparisons, they are way less than that T/L complete set was at the time it was released.

 

[bmasters9]

Originally Posted by Jeff Willis ">[/url]

Although it's looking like this is turning into a "Get Smart - why did I buy it" thread

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

I feel your pain on Get Smart, but I only bought the first season and couldn't get through it. I bought the entire series of The Man From U.N.C.L.E at the full price from Time/Life (about $212) and never made it through the first season. Combat! I bought all the individual sets and had no problem poring through the whole thing. Loved it. Just weird what plays to our individual interests now and what doesn't. Nostalgia alone isn't enough.

 

[jimmyjet]

for me, i realize there are shows that i wont like as much. get smart will certainly be one of them. but i will still get it, more for sentimental reasons, than anything else. the wave that was over our head when we were kids is now only waist high. get smart was aimed for kids. i recall my dad doing the same thing for me - i had to do something for him, if he had to sit through it - LOL.

but there were dumb shows on, that i didnt like even as a kid. i love lucy is pretty dumb, gilligan's island, f troop, mchale's navy, the young rascals. if i get a good price on them, i will buy them - but i am not looking forward to any of those shows.

 

[smithb]

I came reeaaally close to getting Get Smart and Man from U.N.C.L.E during Amazon Deal of the Days for cheap over the summer, and then again almost pulled the trigger for Get Smart during the Target two season packs for $14.99.

All I can say is that after reading this thread I'm glad for once I stayed the course instead of jumping at the deal. I remember thinking UNCLE was cool as a kid but don't remember any more of it. I definitely remember watching Get Smart and enjoying it.

For me it's comedies that I have to be real careful with. Very few of them have lasted the test of time for me. Its either the time period or my age difference causing the biggest issue. Barney Miller has been the biggest surprise purchase for me from a comedy standpoint that worked out really well.

 

[jimmyjet]

i think a lot depends on the type of comedy. dick van dyke is not really a comedy show, but there is a lot of comedy in it. i liked it, as a kid - but it is now my favorite all-time comedy type show. so i actually like it more now as an adult, than i did as a kid.

it has an awful lot to do with the changes in ourselves - LOL.

so many shows have meanings for both kids and adults, in different ways. the flintstones come to mind. it is one reason why it was a big hit during prime time for several years. the adults related to real life parental situations, while the kids loved to yabba dabba do.

 

[bmasters9]

Originally Posted by Hollywoodaholic

I feel your pain on Get Smart, but I only bought the first season and couldn't get through it. I bought the entire series of The Man From U.N.C.L.E at the full price from Time/Life (about $212) and never made it through the first season. Combat! I bought all the individual sets and had no problem poring through the whole thing. Loved it. Just weird what plays to our individual interests now and what doesn't. Nostalgia alone isn't enough.

There has been, for me, at least one silver lining in the form of "Hawaii Five-O." Through 7 seasons' worth of that (1968-75), it has more than proven itself and lived up to its legacy, and it has been an absolute joy to look at.