Your DVD collction and you - Page 2

I go by a number of sorting categories, all boxset/series/special metal packaging together, then by genre or actor and maybe even production source. So all the LOTR EEs are next to Kingdom of Heaven and V for Vendetta tin cases, the Johnny Depp section is sorted by Tim Burton and Non-Tim Burton, next to Gary Oldman which then feeds into the "Vampire" section, my BBC period dramas tend to be grouped with Hollywood/Other remakes of the material and not with other TV shows. The rest of my meagre dvd brood seem to be randomly placed, although I have moved recently, so there is a possibility for more order being imposed yet.

Well, it makes sense to me.

By genre, roughly. Alpha order is dumb. You never think to yourself "I feel like watching a movie that starts with 'M' tonight".

No, but if I think to myself I want to watch Magnolia, I know exactly where it is on the shelf (in the M's) without having to scan every DVD on every shelf until I find it like I used to. I alphabatized mine because I would get so pissed off back when I just threw them on the shelf and it would take me forever to scan all the DVDs until I found the one I was looking for.

When you go to the video store do you say I want to watch a movie that starts with an M, or do you go to the lettered section of the movie you are looking for?

I also never think to myself, "I want to waste an extra several minutes looking for a specific title in a pile of thousands."

Genre and alphabet are both our friends. Any librarian will tell you that.

You haven't found that this scratches the shit out of your disks? I fear those binders.

Who has enough free time to organise 2000 disc into genre, and then alphabetise them?

In the time spent doing that, you could train a lurcher to go and fetch whatever disc you wanted from a huge unsorted pile you kept down in the basement.

Also: What about Cross Genre?

Is the Happiness of the Katakuri's a comedy, a musical, or a horror film?

It wouldn't have been a problem if you simply did it from the beginning, as I and presumably others did. But now? Yeah, you're really fucked. Might as well end it all.

Also, count me in as another vote against binders. They scratch the hell out of your discs, no matter how careful you are with them. Might as well pack your discs in sandpaper.

I have around 1,000+ DVDs between normal movie DVDs and season sets (each season counting as "one DVD").

So, I have 11 shelves for DVDs in Amray casing, ordered alphabetically with the exception going to franchises, in which case they're ordered in order (but the first in the series alphabetically, got it?).

I have another single shelf for Snapper discs, alphabetically. My Rush Hour (the first one) and The Matrix (again, first ones) DVDs are in the Amray case shelves for the "franchise" reasons mentioned above.

I have four other shelves for Collector's Sets DVDs which are for those that come in special boxed sets or special packaging and whatnot. Again, alphabetical except for franchises.

Then I have seven shelves for TV Shows (i.e. season boxed sets). Alphabetical (the titles) and chronological (the seasons, duh).

I have another single shelf for documentaries, music video collections, concert DVDs and stand-up comedy discs.

Finally, one single shelf for Godzilla movies (and other Japanese giant monster movies).

I'm SO tempted to order my "normal" movies by genre, but I won't until I can find some good dividers. Any help?

Yes, those are the shelves, but I have the wider units (I can't tell you how wide, exactly, because my tape measure ran off on me). They hold about 49 DVDs per shelf (you know, give or take considering double or triple disc boxes), so that's just shy of 400 DVDs total for the whole thing.

Apparently I have way more DVDs than I thought since I have two with a stack of discs that could fill half of another.

Anyway, they're great shelves, very sturdy if you build them correctly. Plus, Ikea makes these lights for them that mount on top and look pretty slick. I'll take a picture if I can remember to bring my digital camera home from work.

I just go straight alphabetical order, movies and TV series all together. Franchises go under the first film, although the Indy films are under "I" and the James Bond films are chronological under "J".

You're mad I tell you! MAAAAAAADDDDD!!!!

Yeah, I got too many cross-genre flicks to worry about splitting 'em up like that. I mean, where do you put Alien? Sci-fi or horror? Blade Runner? Sci-fi or noir? Eternal Sunshine? Sci-fi or comedy or drama? Blech, who needs the headache?

So, as you see these 3 spinning racks below, the two on the left contain movies, arranged strictly alphabetically. The third rack on the right is music/concerts for the first few shelves and TV shows after that. And each rack holds over 600 dvds, which is a lot for how little space they take up.

How are the spinners working out for you?

I don't know how you keep stuff on top of your spinning cases like that. Isn't crap always falling off?

The thing about placing sequels together no matter what is, sometimes the definition of sequel is not necessarily clear-cut. I mean is Dawn of the Dead a sequel to Night of the Living dead? Is Patriot Games a sequel to Hunt for Red October? Is Out of Sight a sequel to Jackie Brown? Too much gray area there...

I just solve the problem by being complete fascist when it comes to alphebetizing my DVDs. Alphabetical order, no exceptions. Army of Darkness is nowhere near Evil Dead. First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II are miles apart. It's not like I'm going to forget those movies are part of the same franchise if I keep them apart, so no big deal.

Boxed sets are exceptions obviously, placed alphabetically wherever it makes sense: The Hitchcock boxed set under H, Marx Brothers under M, and so on.

The spinners are great - they're pretty sturdy, and they don't move on their own at all. The stuff on top doesn't even come close to ever falling off either. Though, that picture is about a year old, and I've been able to par down the boxes I keep on top to keep things less cluttered and more aesthetically pleasing.

If the shelves are adjustable in the units that you already have, then you could just buy a few pieces of wood cut to the proper length (and painted/stained to match if you aren't feeling lazy) and add them to your existing setup. I did this with some bookshelves and the new shelves are practically indistinguishable from the old until you get up close to them. It's both cheaper and easier than building an entire custom shelving unit.

Numbered titles first then A-Z last comes tv shows.However I do have all the LOTR movies together. When it comes to remake if the package is bigger I put it first.

Fuck it. I'm doing spine color. Do a fade with the black and white, and a ROY G BIV with the colors.

These spinners are nice. Where did you get them? I have little space to spare to so these would work great!

For my collection, split them up by genre and alphabetize it. You do it once and unless you move, never have to do it again.

I got the spinning racks through different websites. If you notice, the one on the left is different than the other two - I got that one first back in '99. Then when I needed more, I totally forgot where I got it from and just found another kind that was close enough. Which is too bad, because the one on the left is a little better quality, and it'd have been nice if they all matched. Anyways, since it's been about 3 years since I bought the last one, I don't recall where it was from. But a google search turned this up, which seems to be close enough:
http://www.storeyourmedia.com/spinning-storage.htm

Does anyone have less than 200 DVD's... on purpose? I'm just really picky about what I own and I only want what I know I'm going to watch again and again. There are so many movies out there I know I'm only going to watch once in my life so why bother owning it? As far as organization, I actually put the #'s in alphabetical order like everything else, because there is no consistency in titles with regards to whether a symbol is used or the word, so for me, it's better that way. I also have some things on display, like the LOTR EE trilogy. It sits on its own shelf with the Argonath bookends.

I have just over a thousand, and I know full well that I won't be watching most of them in their entirety ever again. But I see my collection as more of a library, a library of films personal to me and my development as a film lover. So just like a library, it's point is to have access to my favorite films (which are legion and vary from Bergman to Bay) should I ever want to just see a scene or two here and there, or to take in a commentary, or share an obscure cult-film with friends who have never heard of it but would appreciate it. It's just part of a hobby, and I am a bit of collector. But I do feel the drag of having too much "stuff", as I am not at all a materialistic sort of person, so it's not the discs themselves that I'm drawn to, but what's contained on them...

I'm at about 170 I think. And I am picky. While I enjoyed the hell out of Uncle Buck when I was little, and even though it's $4 or $5, it's a worthless addition to what I have.

What I do with my wish List is I try to add a movie to it as soon as I think I might want to own it after having seen it. So when it comes out on dvd (if a new release) it's reckoning time. Do I really want it? A lot of the times it will be no.

I thought I was going to want to own The Prestige and Down in the Valley. They were both on my list. When they came out, it dawned on me I'd never watch DITV again and The Prestige will be dirt cheap in a year.

Patience. Hindsight. Saves me thousands of dollars.

Well, I finally got pics of my entertainment room/office taken today.

You'll see the shelves with the normal DVD's organized in order (Amray, Snapper, special/box sets), then the second DVD shelf with music/live comedy, Godzilla movies, TV season sets and under that second shelf my brand-new (as of this weekend) comic book drawers.

You'll notice I don't put movies with numerical titles in order before "A", but I do so with my TV DVD's. Why? I dunno.

There's a space between seasons 1 and 3 of 24 'cuz a friend of mine's has them borrowed. Also, a space after the first season of Rome because I'm planning on buying the second one this week.

Enjoy!

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...entOffice1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...entOffice2.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...entOffice3.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...entOffice4.jpg

That is a pretty sweet set up. That's definitely something I can use for my DVDs and comics. Where'd you get that? Or is it custom?

Your comic books should really be bagged and boarded though.

Oh yeah? I also have Serenity shelved next to my Firefly season set.

You've gone completely off the reservation. Rehab. Seriously. Consider it.

I need to take a new picture. And perhaps I'll post it here.

Yeah, it's all custom. The comics thing just arrived this weekend. I've only managed to fill up seven drawers, all with mid/late-2004 to 2007 issues. All my pre-2004 issues are back at my parent's house.

I'm guessing my DC issues from those dates will take up around five drawers, so, plenty left over for... I dunno, whatever I plan to stick there.

They, I only board and bag really important issues or really old ones. The trick I came up with was to stock 'em a batch facing forward and another backwards so I don't have one whole big line of spines curving the entire thing. Plus, one board at the halfway point. If it stays as it is at the moment I don't think they'll get damaged (or slanted) that much.

Question:

Does anybody know a good place to order some genre dividers for DVDs?

Go to a Suncoast (if there's still one near you) and make the clerk an offer. If that's a no go...then make your own.

Thing is, I'd need one that lists the genre on the left-hand side scrolling down, not on top like most Suncoast/Spec's/FYE/Sam Goody stores.

Edit: Also, "if there's still one near [me]"? I had two close by and one closed this summer... are they closing them down? Did I miss the news? I know they closed all the Sam Goody's here and moved Spec's over and Spec's has the same owners as both Sam Goody and Suncoast...

They're building a HUGE (and I've traveled to enough in USA to compare) Best Buy here. I'm wicked excited about that.

How much did it cost you to have made? When I move later this year to new digs something like that would be a perfect solution to my tons of DVDs and many long boxes of comics. Either that or I'm going to have to rent a storage container.

Well, the guy charged me $1,400 but it's made completely out of mahogany because I like that stuff to last me years and years. I still got this huge desk at my parent's house that I've had since I was six and it still looks like new. It was gonna be like $950-$1,000 but the cost went $400 over or so, so, yeah, it ended up being $1,400.

The mahogany goes the same with the DVD shelves. I don't remember what those cost, though. The guy also did a sweeeet bookshelf with doors and everything.

The comics thing is really three units side-by-side to look like one big one. The shelves right over it with the TV season sets is a completely different unit, just positioned adjacent to the comics so it all looks like one big one, as well.

I was under the impression that TransWorld was pushing them out of the business.

But, the mahogany looks awesome. Really nice setup.