DVD Library

[Alphonse Doinel]

Never had that problem either, but I have seen it happen. Just make sure the discs aren't snug. I find the cheaper cases are actually better for this.

[Perkins Cobb]

I just kinda throw 'em in a stack. These days, I'm doing pretty well if I can keep the kevyip pile and the resale pile separate.

[Siddon]

I have close to 400, I use a bunch of smaller shelves around the house and fill them based on genre. For example I have a small shelving unit that fits about 75 so I put my horror films there, I keep that in the bed room because I like to fall asleep to a scary movie. I have a cardboard pullout so I put all my thin cased 007's, Tales from the Crypts, Twilight Zone, and Outer Limits. I then have another small 75 case where I put near the main TV, films that guests may want to watch (Casablanca, Big Sleep, Bridge on the River Kwai, Finding Nemo etc). Upstairs rooms I have an adjustable shelving unit with four shelves to the side where I divide by genre, general interest at the top, Sci Fi on the 2nd, Action/Super Hero 3rd, Film Noir at the bottom. TV Shows, the ones that I have a small amount of and fit into a genre I keep with films (Lost, Murder One, Invasion, Prisoner, Doctor Who, Veronica Mars, WiseGuy)

My Criterions are all over the place
Horror - Diabolique, Kwaidan
Family room - Royal Tennebaums
General Interest - Le Corbeau, Naked Prey, The River, Wild Strawberries
Sci Fi - Brazil
Noir - Elevator to the Gallows, High and Low, Killers, M, Mona Lisa, Third Man

I wish I owned more Criterions but they are never on sale, and 50% of my collection I purchase on going out of business sales from Video stores.

[PillowRock]

I suspect that I'm about to make a few people's heads explode.

My DVDs are currently sorted by language/country and clustered by director. "Silent" counts as a language for purposes of this shelving. The English language group (by far the largest group) is also loosely divided up by genre. The "language/country" thing sometimes devolves to case-by-case decisions of whether country or language is the primary determinant. Lightly represented "country/language" headings tend to be super-clustered geographic region / proximity.

The kevyip is separate, and is sorted kinda-sorta chronologically by the date I take possession (which sometimes varies from purchase date order due to mail-order delivery issues). It's currently "kinda-sorta" because I bought a townhouse in November and the packing/unpacking process did a little minor shuffling of the kevyip as it stood at that point.

My somewhat angst-y sorting decisions are for the Bunuels of the world, where language and director sorting directly conflict.

[zedz]

Zedz, how do you file them if you don't do them chronologically by director??? Other than doing the whole lot chronologically, which would be interesting as a one-off but not for permanent, I can't think of any other way to do them? (I make an exception for Alien, Lon Chaney - though i have awful problems with Chaney/Browning films- Die Hard and Christina Lindbergh but I always feel guilty doing so.)

For aesthetic and geek reasons I keep certain series (Criterion, Eclipse, Masters of Cinema, Second Run, Filmmuseum, NiNA) all together numerically and after that it's as strict as I can make it: alphabetical by director; chronological within director. Multi-director titles (such as portmanteau films and compilations) at the end; multi-director box sets lining the tops of the bookshelves. Oh, and music DVDs are also separate by artist. At the moment I'm also keeping non-Criterion / MoC BluRays off to the side, but I expect they'll all get integrated eventually.

I don't think filing alphabetically by title would work for me. Although there are probably a handful of films whose director I can't remember offhand, looking them up or scouring the shelves is a lot less hassle than, if I feel like watching a Howard Hawks film, say, trying to remember what they all are off the top of my head.

[Perkins Cobb]

My kevyip is more or less chronological, since I tend to think in terms of eras. As in, I'm in the mood for something from the 30s, or something recent, etc., and then narrow it down from there. But if there's a subset of something that I'll probably watch all in a chunk (i.e., the MOC Mizoguchis, or a bunch of 80s Australian New Wave movies) I'll keep those together. And review copies get their own pile, since there's deadlines involved.

Fuck, I'm as bad as the rest of you.

[Floyd]

I do a pretty similar thing to people here. Directors films together than order them in year coming out. HOWEVER, I also do a ridiculously geek move by putting together directors who are/were friends like Errol Morris with Werner Herzog, Elaine May with John Cassavetes and Jim Jarmusch with Claire Denis for instance. Also if a director has said good things about another director for instance Michael Ritchie with Wes Anderson. Yikes.

[matrixschmatrix]

Geez, where on Earth do you put Scorsese?

[Zumpano]

I thought of you guys when I went to purchase Louie Season One and found that they offer the Blu-Ray/DVD combo in both DVD packaging AND Blu Ray packaging. I DON'T KNOW WHICH TO CHOOSE!!!

[Minkin]

My friend has a few of those combo packs in the DVD cases. He always gets comments informing him that there is a Blu release of the film- to which he surprises them by showing off it is indeed the Blu release.

Unless you enjoy surprising people (or have an aversion to that awful ugly blue plastic)- go with the Blu packaging.

[HistoryProf]

I want to put my "everything else" into binders....i've been thinking about it for a while now - where do you get sleeves to put the discs in? Are they just regular 3 ring binders?

I use these- they protect the discs from dust and what have you, and the individual pages in them are swappable (meaning if you get a box set that goes in the middle of one for whatever reason, you can just grab a page off the end, fill it up, and put it in the middle, instead of having to switch absolutely everything.) It's worth it, the cases stay nice and undamaged in the attic, and I can carry a lot more of my collection around.

FWIW I got one of these last month and transferred about 300 of my "regular" dics - just US catalog stuff that i'll never sell anyway because these days it wouldn't be worth it. I did discover my case for Dogma was empty though. That was weird. We're moving in a month and it was awfully nice to replace a giant box of dvds from the piles in favor of a small binder. I just pitched the cases since I simply could not conceive of trying to sell any of the titles that made the binder. Anything worth $ will remain shelved somewhere.

Likewise, we decided to get a few of these smaller binders for subcategories...to start will be westerns, Wife's stuff (Jane Austen, BBC, etc), and catalog foreign that isn't worth much and i'll also never bother trying to sell. All of these will cut displayed titles in half at least, but it still leaves 300ish Criterion/MOC/Eclipse + other box sets, TV, and blu rays.

[TMDaines]

I've been buying a few OOP discs recently - nothing too rare or expensive, just a few things that were out-of-print before or around the time I got into watching films seriously - and I've noticed a tendency for collectors to put small pieces of bubble wrap inside DVD cases. There's usually a piece on top of the disk, and one on top of each if there is tray for a second disc inside a case, and a piece on top of any booklet. Presumably this is done to stop any wear from where the tray moves about in transit? Is this something that people do quite commonly? I'm really anal about keeping things and avoiding any unnecessary damage but this strikes me as extreme!

[Matt]

When I used to sell a lot of DVDs via Amazon Marketplace, I typically put a folded-up paper towel on top of the disc to discourage it from popping of the spindle from rough handling. And if it did pop off, the paper towel might keep it from moving around too much in the case and getting scratched up. With feedback on Amazon and ebay being so precious, I didn't think it was going too far.

[swo17]

I also do the paper towel thing with everything I sell.

[TMDaines]

Now I don't feel that I'm so so diligent in my packaging attempts.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's more necessary when the discs are in those flimsy recycling cut-out cases that crack at the drop of a hat. I'm not sure if they're as prevalent in the UK as they are here.

[TMDaines]

Don't think I've seen too many in the UK but Warner loves to use them in Italy.

[Jonathan S]

Unless it's a slimline case or has a very thick booklet inside, I've included a bit of bubble-wrap every time I've sent a DVD to someone for the last decade (with new gifts I even ask the recipient if they'd like me to open the seal to do this and they always say yes!) and I usually ask sellers to do it for me. With me, it's nothing to do with protecting the case, only the disc. I've received so many scratched-up "floaters" over the years - both secondhand and new - I wish everyone, including manufacturers, would include some padding inside the cases.

[hamsterburger]

I learned a new word today "kevyip." Thats what happens when I miss a few months around here.

Hope I’m not thread-hijacking by asking som kevyip-related questions:

I went through my collection list last week and crossed out the films I still haven’t seen.
Before the tally I would have guessed that maybe 5% was unseen, but man was I off.

It amounted to 399 out of 1909 films, so if my maths isn’t completely wrong that means that 20,9 % of my collection is kevyip. That’s a pretty large percent.

I have now decided to stop borrowing discs and instead focus on my own enormous pile. Also, and more importantly, I have made a conscious decision to stop buying any more DVDs and blu-rays until I am at a reasonable kevyip level. But what is a reasonable level?

What do you guys think, and what is your kevjip to watched ratio?

[Perkins Cobb]

Honestly, I'm fine with having a big kevyip. If I buy something it tends to go to the bottom of the stack -- there's more urgency with almost everything else -- racing the Netflix clock before discs disappear and don't get replaced, the public library before discs get scratched up, Redbox before they cycle something out, stuff borrowed from friends that needs to go back, etc. The discs I own are the only ones that don't have some kind of external deadline attached (although even that's not entirely true, because sometimes I eye the kevyip shelf and think I should watch the most expensive discs first, so I can recycle them for cash).

Plus, since I do tend to sell off or trade discs once I've watched them, apart from the small number (say 10-20%) of films that I fall in love with and the discs that are worth too little to merit an eBay listing, that also keeps the kevyip high. I'm sure it's over 50%.

In other words ... relax, and embrace your kevyip!

[Gregory]

I usually have what I feel is too much kevyip, but it's a good problem to have (now that I'm in a house rather than renting apartments), especially when I'm running through a lot of things decade-by-decade in the Lists Project.
For me, it's about finding a good middle ground between buying too little and too much. "Too little" includes missing out on a great discount on something that turns out to be a missed opportunity, and failing to get something before it goes out of print. "Too much" includes things I regretted buying because they were offered at a significantly lower price not too long my purchase, or because a film gets an improved release that I'd rather have than the DVD I bought, which I can't resell without getting much less than I paid. "Blind buying" used to be another big category of buying too much—though it often paid off for me—but I've largely stopped making blind purchases except when the price is just too good to pass up, or when I'm almost sure it's something I'll like and cannot borrow the disc first. "Too much" obviously also has the limitations of budget and of the amount one can watch without the things sitting around brand new for years. I also don't think it's good to watch only things from the kevyip. If I didn't pull things out of the main "library" to revisit them, I think that'd be a bad sign. So I try to find a balance within all of that.

[warren oates]

In other words ... relax, and embrace your kevyip!

I agree with Perkins Cobb, mostly.

As long as you're not living like a hoarder with no space to move or over-extending your credit to finance a collection you're unable to find time to enjoy because you're working too hard to pay it off, you probably don't have a problem.

In my experience, the sheer physicality of a kevyip tends to overrate one's neglect of it. You think some of you guys have problems with discs? You should see my book kevyip! And yet? I'm not going to stop buying/reading new books until I've made it through every volume I already own. I've also got an ever accumulating and largely invisible Kindle and PDF file kevyip too, full of electronic books and scripts I fully intend to read. I know I'll never get to every title, even if I live to be 100, because there will always be more new stuff coming in.

Here's another way to look at a kevyip: as a collection of plans and possibilities for the future. Nobody would make an arbitrary decision to limit the rest of their foreseeable life to only doing the long list of things they think are most important today. Priorities change with time in big and small ways. A decision to watch this or that title can be comprised of hundreds of smaller considerations -- Is it a good print/transfer? Will so-and-so come with me? Can I watch this with my significant other or my kid? Will I learn anything that will influence my current work? Am I even in the mood to watch a film like the one I imagine this is? (Or to be surprised when it turns out to be something altogether different?)

I used to feel a bit more like Perkins Cobb in that I needed to watch everything I could while it was still available, say on Netflix streaming, for instance. But I ended up watching a higher percentage of mediocre stuff that way. Now I'm more relaxed and tend to follow my bliss, sometimes dutifully chipping away at my kevyip, but always careful to remain open to new viewing experiences wherever and whenever they may arise.

[zedz]

Like warrenoates says, having a kevyip is just like having a library, and nobody freaks out about having books on their shelves that they haven't read yet.

I keep a list of the stuff I haven't watched and cross things off as I get to them (and add things on as I pick up new discs). It's small print, with about seventy titles per page. Once it starts running into a second page, I generally instigate some kevyip-clearing viewing project to get through at least one title a night and knock it back down to size. Those projects could be aligned with one of the lists projects on here, or could be semi-random. Some examples: really long films; really short films; all the unwatched films by a particular director; Best/Worst (extract a pile of twenty films I've been putting off viewing because I want to savour them and another pile of twenty films I've been putting off because I was dreading them, such as makeweight titles included in box sets, bargain bin gambles or films picked up on the recommendation of domino harvey, then watch one from Pile A, one from Pile B alternately until they're done.); A Kevyip Alphabet (which I'm actually doing right now - last night was Experiments in Terror 3; tonight it's O Fantasma, and maybe God's Little Acre if I can stay awake.)

[colinr0380]

I look at it as a way of having something to rifle through and crib from in response to a whim or a query as much as a way of keeping myself entertained. Many is the time during a debate on the forum that I can be inspired by looking at a DVD or video on the shelves around me. A collection isn't really about a particular DVD, as much as a library isn't about just one book - by definition it is an accumulation of material that builds up to create a bank of knowledge, or potential knowledge if you count your 'to watch/read/listen to' pile!

Although I haven't gotten around to opening up a number of films (to pick at random: either of those Arrow Fassbinder box sets), it is great to know that they are there ready and waiting, either for when I reach them in the pile or when I pick them out of the pile because I am inspired to do so or in response to a debate that occurs on the forum for example. The idea of having such potential there is quite wonderful, even if an outside viewer might think it is pointless to have not gotten around to watching it yet!

I love being surrounded with shelves of books, tapes and videos - I really should start trying to binder up some of it to start saving space before it gets too late (and at the moment I would need a lot of advance notice before moving anywhere!), but at the same time the few films I have done that with end up almost entirely disappearing from my consciousness by being tucked away (for example I forgot to bring up All About Lily Chou-Chou during a debate a while ago, likely because the disc has long been hidden away in its binder rather than on the shelf! Similarly I sometimes forget about computer games that I have in my Steam library on the computer or music on iTunes compared to their boxed or CD counterparts). There can be something inspirational about casually gazing through well ordered shelves which just isn't there when everything is tidily and inoffensively tucked away.

Having enough space (and not irritating significant others!) is always a consideration, I agree, but I think clutter can sometimes be a useful tool to create connections and aid thought processes too!

[warren oates]

I agree with Colinr0380 about how the physical presence of a book or DVD library can inspire you. I often feel like I think better when I'm able to randomly browse through titles as tangible objects, like they are an extension of my memory. This is why I still love going to libraries and bookstores even in the age of the eBook and Amazon. There's just something about the process of moving through physical space while reflecting on the time you've spent immersed in other different worlds.

I also think zedz has a few useful tips for jumpstarting a kevyip clearing. Sometimes you don't even know you needed to see something until your force yourself to watch it somewhat arbitrarily. I'm not so anal about it that I could even go in strict alphabetical order but sometimes I'll just pick a stack of a dozen unwatched titles and force myself to watch one. Or I'll go into my director and genre sections and make myself pick something by so-and-so or from such-and-such genre that I haven't seen yet.