We have wish lists, but what’s on your dump list? (1 Viewer)

[English Patient]

In situations such as this I look for the title on Redbox, etc. If I like it enough I purchase later.

For me, most of the time I use the various cable channels, like HBO or Showtime, as a means of trying out a title. Several years ago I caught the Colin Firth movie "A Single Man" on cable and liked it enough to buy the blu-ray. Pretty sad that I've gotten so lazy that I can't even be bothered to make a trip to the nearest Redbox or video store. I guess I'm one of the people who helped kill the video store. Death by neglect.

 

[John Dirk]

Pretty sad that I've gotten so lazy that I can't even be bothered to make a trip to the nearest Redbox or video store. I guess I'm one of the people who helped kill the video store. Death by neglect.

No. Death by obsolescence. It may be sad from a nostalgic perspective but, ultimately, it's just progress. With the traffic in my area, I'm not happy to venture out for entertainment fare either. Generally, I would much rather have it come to me but [for the time being anyway] there are exceptions.

 

[Nick*Z]

It's funny, but I always held a huge garage sale at my place whenever I decided to invest in a new format. So, in the mid-80's I said goodbye to just under a thousand video tapes in favor of switching wholesale to LaserDisc. When DVD came along, my LD collection only totaled 256 - as LD's were decidedly far more expensive than tapes to own (I had to be selective in my purchases). But then along came price-point conscious DVD and finally, Blu-ray and 4K. I never part with anything, even if I haven't revisited it since my initial purchase.

So, what were once small cabinets bought from an online distributor have given way to a custom-built book shelf styled carousel, in which several rows can be stored in front of one another, with easy access, by raising and lowering the shelves from within. When my DVD/Blu-ray collection topped out at just over 6000 (I worked for a movie company, some freebees, but mostly I bought) my boss said, "Gee, that's kind of an obsession," to which I replied, "Actually, it's more like mental illness, but I've decided to find it charming!"

To date, my collection tops out at 7,364 titles, spanning virtually every decade in film and TV. Percentage wise: Blu-ray makes up a little more than half this catalog; DVD's the rest, with maybe 2% or less in 4K. Hopefully, 4K will continue to grow.

As someone else already pointed out - it's very gratifying to collect. It's hard to explain, but it's different than hoarding, and, as long as everything is alphabetized and classified according to year and genre, I have no trouble finding this stuff when I just want to kick back and relax. And Netflix, Hula and the rest be damned!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It kind of gets out of hand when you're a reviewer, too. I have dozens of middling to awful screeners from Well Go that will just need to donate to Goodwill. I don't think the public library would take them, but maybe I should start there and let them make the donation call.

I've only got a year under my belt so not as many duds so far, but last year's reviewing filled up a row and a half on one of my shelves, and I know that probably 50% of the titles I reviewed I'm not likely to revisit, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with those long term. I am proud to have reviewed them and for the moment I'm happy to have the object as a reminder of the time I spent working on each project. I also don't mind having them for now in case someone asks a question down the road about a disc I reviewed; then I can at least pull the disc and try to reference it to answer.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Could very well be adding the following DVD's to my dump list by the end of the year!

Batman Anthology
Demolition Man
Star Trek 2
Air Force One
Tombstone
Mimic
Bad Boy 1 & 2
War Of The Worlds

 

[John Dirk]

and I know that probably 50% of the titles I reviewed I'm not likely to revisit, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with those long term

It's odd that a [seemingly] simple problem should be so difficult to deal with in the modern world. As the idiom goes, one man's [or woman's] trash is another one's treasure, yet the logistics are likely prohibitive in this case.

 

[John Dirk]

Could very well be adding the following DVD's to my dump list by the end of the year!

Batman Anthology
Demolition Man
Star Trek 2
Air Force One
Tombstone
Mimic
Bad Boy 1 & 2
War Of The Worlds

Some of these [actually most of them - don't judge me ] are among my classic favorites. In my case, because of that, I already own them. If I didn't, however, and wanted to purchase yours I doubt there is an economically feasible way to do that on a small scale. I do think there might be an opportunity available for anyone willing to warehouse such titles on a larger scale until permanent homes could be found.

 

[Citizen87645]

After my The Great Purge of 2019, I managed to clear out one entire storage box (around 130 titles). There are other titles on my short list if space gets tight, but I'm holding onto them for now. Mostly DVD box sets that I'm keeping for sentimental reason (e.g. the Star Wars OT DVDs I picked up on my first HTF meet), but also TV series I'm kind of ambivalent about now (Supernatural, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, to name a few).

 

[Osato]

After my The Great Purge of 2019, I managed to clear out one entire storage box (around 130 titles). There are other titles on my short list if space gets tight, but I'm holding onto them for now. Mostly DVD box sets that I'm keeping for sentimental reason (e.g. the Star Wars OT DVDs I picked up on my first HTF meet), but also TV series I'm kind of ambivalent about now (Supernatural, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, to name a few).

I really have gone with five year rule.
There’s a lot of movies that I just had to have or collect and then I find myself never watching them. Also many that I bought that I watched one and that was it.

I did buy 2 titles this week though!!!! : )

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Went to the used shop to drop off some discs today and made a discovery there that made my day - and saved me shelf space.

I remember seeing “Grindhouse” in theaters - it was one of the great moviegoing memories I have. My then roommate and I had tickets to a Red Sox day game in the spring, and had taken the day off from work to attend. Day came and it was crappy out from the start of the day, and they decided to postpone the game long before anyone would have left for the park. But we had taken the day already, so we went to the local theater and saw Grindhouse and had a great time. Right movie for the right moment, the crowd there was great and totally into it, and I loved it.

Unfortunately, they split up Grindhouse into two individual DVD releases rather than the intended double feature. You couldn’t buy it as a single film. Each of the two films was extended on DVD, and frankly, not for the better. So I wound up having to buy two discs to get a crappier version of what I saw with one ticket in theaters.

Used shop had a Blu-ray of the theatrical version of Grindhouse which I didn’t even know existed. Got rid of the DVD versions I didn’t like, and got the BD of the version I do like. That’s a win.

 

[Osato]

Went to the used shop to drop off some discs today and made a discovery there that made my day - and saved me shelf space.

I remember seeing “Grindhouse” in theaters - it was one of the great moviegoing memories I have. My then roommate and I had tickets to a Red Sox day game in the spring, and had taken the day off from work to attend. Day came and it was crappy out from the start of the day, and they decided to postpone the game long before anyone would have left for the park. But we had taken the day already, so we went to the local theater and saw Grindhouse and had a great time. Right movie for the right moment, the crowd there was great and totally into it, and I loved it.

Unfortunately, they split up Grindhouse into two individual DVD releases rather than the intended double feature. You couldn’t buy it as a single film. Each of the two films was extended on DVD, and frankly, not for the better. So I wound up having to buy two discs to get a crappier version of what I saw with one ticket in theaters.

Used shop had a Blu-ray of the theatrical version of Grindhouse which I didn’t even know existed. Got rid of the DVD versions I didn’t like, and got the BD of the version I do like. That’s a win.

Great find!! Used shops can always have some great finds!

I picked up mission impossible fallout for $10. Was debating holding out for the UHD disc but decided the Blu Ray was just fine.
Second film is the Roger Moore Gold film. Directed by Peter Hunt. I have an old crappy pan and scan dvd of the film. A seller on amazon had the new kino Blu Ray for $9! So I went for it.

Not sure either film will get watched a ton, but I really like Roger Moore’s films and I have enjoyed the last 3 Mission Impossible films too.

I sold 2 titles this week as well. Batman anthology Blu Ray set. Getting the UHd discs which also include the new transfers on Blu Ray. Also the big country which I never watched.

 

[TJPC]

I always watch recent Blu ray acquisitions, before I take ones off my shelves, to make sure the new ones are ok. Recently I have been finding a lot of bargoons that I can’t resist. I just picked up boxed sets of “The Hunger Games”, “Divergent” and “Die Hard”. A thought occurred to me — “I am going to be viewing this second rate crap before I get to re-view say the extended “Lord of The Rings” or all my Marvel movies etc. I am going to have to make sure as usual that I don’t buy anything no matter what the price that I am going to find a chore to watch. I find I laps into “collection maintenance” instead of enjoying my collection if I don’t watch myself.

 

[Osato]

I always watch recent Blu ray acquisitions, before I take ones off my shelves, to make sure the new ones are ok. Recently I have been finding a lot of bargoons that I can’t resist. I just picked up boxed sets of “The Hunger Games”, “Divergent” and “Die Hard”. A thought occurred to me — “I am going to be viewing this second rate crap before I get to re-view say the extended “Lord of The Rings” or all my Marvel movies etc. I am going to have to make sure as usual that I don’t buy anything no matter what the price that I am going to find a chore to watch. I find I laps into “collection maintenance” instead of enjoying my collection if I don’t watch myself.

Understood. I really am trying to pare down my collection. I watch the regular favorites the most. If I haven’t watched it in at least 5 years, I’ve decided to let it go. I’ve sold a lot since January.

I’ve had a couple of moves and a lot of life changes since 2014. I have a lot less time and there’s so much content that could be watched. I have titles that I know haven’t been watched since I moved the first time in 2014.

If I upgrade a title I try to sell or give away the older format too.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’ve lately been consolidating things I do want to keep into fewer cases, especially when it comes to a film series where I like one significantly more than the others. For example, I had individual discs for Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13. I love the first one and am mildly amused by the others. They’re now all in a three disc case that’s the size of a single case, with just the Ocean’s 11 artwork showing.

 

[Osato]

I’ve lately been consolidating things I do want to keep into fewer cases, especially when it comes to a film series where I like one significantly more than the others. For example, I had individual discs for Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13. I love the first one and am mildly amused by the others. They’re now all in a three disc case that’s the size of a single case, with just the Ocean’s 11 artwork showing.

I love the oceans films.

I’d buy those again on UHd Blu Ray. I watch them all at least once a year.

 

[RolandL]

Moving to Florida next year when I retire so, need to clean out the house as we are moving to a much smaller home.

On my dump list is VHS tapes including the 3D titles in the field sequential method. Also DVD-R recordings as I only watch mostly Blu-ray's now.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I'm dipping my toe into the HTPC waters.

I've been on a project this year to reclaim some shelf space. Phase one, which I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, was to dump things that I hadn't watched in forever, or not at all. That went off pretty well, and I was able to get a little bit of money out of selling the stuff (some on HTF, most at a local used shop), and I pretty much put that money into upgrading a lot of my remaining DVDs to HD or 4K copies (either physical discs or digitally). At this point, while I have a bunch of DVDs left in my collection, it's basically only stuff that's never been released on any other format.

Phase two was combining the things I did want to keep into more efficient packaging. I do like original artwork, but my collection was still sprawling over more space than I'd like, and there were some things that I wanted to keep where I didn't really care about the display. Here's an example. I have all three of the Clooney "Ocean's" films, but the only one that I actually rewatch with any regularity is Ocean's 11. So I bought one of those three disc Blu-ray cases that is the same size as a single disc case, and put all three movies in there with just the Ocean's 11 artwork showing. That allowed me to reduce the shelf space those movies took up without losing any content, and now the only one I see displayed on the shelf is the one I really care about. I've stored the extra cases off-site just in case I win the lottery one day and have unlimited space.

Phase three is my HTPC project. There are some discs where the physical objects have sentimental value to me, and also some discs where the sheer volume of bonus features or complexity of the disc authoring making ripping them onto a computer more trouble than it's worth. But there are also some discs which have no bonus features and don't have artwork that means anything to me. Those will be good candidates to be added to the HTPC.

Before I started any of this, I had six shelving units of discs completely full. By getting rid of stuff that I didn't watch and didn't want, I brought that down to five. By consolidating discs in smaller packaging, right now I'm on the verge of bringing that down to four. And if I can digitize the stuff where I don't care about displaying the discs, I think I can bring that down further to just two shelving units, which would be a massive amount of space I'd be getting back. And then, when I look at whatever does remain, they will all be things that I'm happy to see displayed, and not things that make me think, "why did I even buy that?".

I'm feeling pretty good about how this is going so far.

 

[benbess]

I'm realizing there are a lot of blu-rays that I own that I haven't watched in 5 years—or more. And some I've never watched that are still in their plastic several years later. For instance, I think I bought the movie Ray on Ray Charles back in maybe 2011—and it's still in the plastic. I haven't seen the movie since it came out in theaters in 2004. I really liked the strong performance by Jamie Foxx, but when it comes down to it so far I haven't actually put it on. Maybe I will in the next month or so, but even after that watch (if it happens) it seems like it's time to let that movie go. And if I don't watch it by the end of August I guess I should just sell it to Half-Price books with the plastic still on....I'm also letting go of the 1937 version of The Adventures of Robin Hood after watching it for the first time in ten years. It's a charming film, but actually I like the gritty Ridley Scott version better. I have about 500 blu-rays, and my guess is that I could probably let go of at least 10% of them, and maybe more. I've already sold back some of my TV shows like Rome, because when I finally watched part of that show again it was easier to just do it streaming.

 

[RJGT]

I've thought at times about dumping some but usually when I look at the film and I remember all the details about why I wanted it in the first place it quickly goes back on the shelf. What I have had some fun with is saving shelf space by consolidating individual titles (non-Criterion or non-special edition packages) into collections based on actor, genre or some other theme. I started out thinking if I put two discs in one case I'd cut the shelf space needed in half. Then I progressed to 3-disc, 4-disc and now 6-disc cases and I've got lots of room for lots more films.

 

[TJPC]

The first thing I do whether I watch the movie right away or not, is rip off the plastic. I want to see if the disc is actually in there and in good shape.