I am. When I first started collecting DVDs, I only purchased movies I would watch several times. Now, most of my purchases comprise of blind buys. Most of them sit on a shelf for months. I have some movies I bought over a year ago and still haven't watched. I'll also buy sequels I don't really like just for the sake of completing a series.
shareThis actually dovetails nicely with a discussion we're having on the DVD vs Blu-Ray thread elsewhere on this forum, in which my esteemed fellow forum member, foebane72, posted the following:
MikeJonas, why do you keep advocating streams and downloads in favour of physical formats? THE INFRASTRUCTURE SIMPLY ISN'T THERE, and won't be for at least 10 years.
What is it you hate so much about physical formats anyway?
*THIS* is why I'm in favor of streams and downloads.
The infrastructure "isn't there"? I guess there are 25 million Netflix subscribers (and millions of Hulu subscribers, and countless downloaders, both legal and otherwise) who would disagree. I guess the fact that the growth of streaming is outpacing Blu-ray doesn't count for anything.
Look, there'll always be room for physical formats, for serious collectors, for people looking to buy movies they really want, for people who don't have the said infrastructure.
But as technology marches on, and as many people in the world struggle with finances and hunger for entertainment, we NEED to outgrow the mindset of HeatFanSince2010 up there. I own about 300 DVDs, many of which are still sealed in package and many more which have just been viewed once or twice. I own about 150 Blu-rays, and likewise, many are unopened, many viewed only a couple of times since purchase. Few are of any significant resale value. Both collections take up a huge chunk of wall shelving.
We don't all have to be self-appointed archivists, amassing ridiculously large collections at great expense, blindly buying anything that comes out just so we can have it sitting on the shelf "just in case," gathering dust. For the movies we care to watch but shouldn't really care to own, we ought to start turning to streaming and downloading. It's more affordable, and the catalogs are deep; they may not have the latest, they definitely don't have it all, but it's still a bigger collection than most of us can accumulate, with titles that can be hard to find at rental or retail, and there's always something in there that you'll enjoy. And it takes up much less space. Sure, I have a few hundred movies on disc, but I can go weeks before pulling anything out of that shelf; with my connected TV, Netflix, and a cheap PC outfitted with a few terabytes of hard drives as a media server, I have thousands upon thousands of titles literally at my fingertips.
I'm not saying we should stop buying physical media--I know I won't. But we can all choose to be more selective with our purchases, and choose only the ones we know will get some mileage on our players, only the ones that really *need* to be seen in 30 megabit 1080p video. Stop blind buying. Stop buying movies that you may have liked in the theater but don't see yourself watching multiple times in the foreseeable future.
My first DVD purchase was when I was 12. I bought Never Say Never Again. I remember being thrilled at owning that movie a James Bond movie I hadn't even heard of. It was a magical experience watching that first disc. Now over 10 years later I definitely own a lot of DVDs and blu rays. My movie buying became worse after I quit smoking cigarettes. I bought way too many blue ray too fast and now I have almost 400 of them. Sometimes I look at my shelf with pride other times with shame. At least I know I have an addictive personality and I plan on changing myself to be a better person this year. I've bought about 20 this year so far and for me that's already a success.
shareNope. Been there, done that. I'm now addicted to physical exercise. It's healthy, and it's free.
I still enjoy WATCHING movies, however, and do notice the improvement in picture quality blu-ray provides!
Collecting movies is an addiction as expensive and unhealthy as any other, I suppose, if done more than in moderation, to what your budget can afford, and your addiction is what the movie studios are counting on. If you're collecting even crap sequels simply because you've got to have the whole film series, I think you need to find a way to channel that obsessive-compulsive nature into something that will actually do you some good, like exercise, or a detail-oriented job that requires that obsessive-compulsive nature and makes you money.
I think we're all getting wise to the multiple dipping of our wallets.
Actually I was much more liberal with my purchases when I first got into DVD. Now I'm picky and try to stick with things I'll really watch again.
shareThank you for answering my question, MikeJ... I think.
As for my DVD/Blu purchases, they were perfectly reasonable and of films I'd rented or seen in the cinema and liked a lot, but now they've plummeted to nearly zero as I am moving to physical rentals, with LoveFilm, etc.
I did spend rather a lot on them, but in recent years that's been replacing perfectly good DVDs with Blus, as I realised that for some of the older films I've got, it's really not necessary - so I halted all that.
I will make certain exceptions, though - I see the Hobbit is coming out in a few days, and the day Spirited Away comes out on Blu, I'll be there - to rent at least.
MikeJ, when I said about "infrastructure", I meant more along the lines of bandwidth - if even a quarter of internet users downloaded movies in one go, then it would be severely strained, I would imagine - I don't know that much about this sort of thing. But I do know that YouTube users struggled in its early days, because of lack of bandwidth.
www.foebane.co.uk
Up until 2011, I owned about 1,100 DVDs (unfortunatly a lot of trashy action flicks I grew up with, considering I started buying when I was a teenager) and in the realm of 50 Blu-Ray discs. Then Tropical Storm Lee (and my own disorganization hit), so I only have about 30-or-so Blu-Ray discs and a hundred or so badly-damaged DVD's left due to flood damage ruining 90% of my things.
At this point, I'm not as addicted to buying movies as I once was, simply because I have so many to replace and I'm feeling overwhlemed.
My goal is to save up and start upgrading the essential movies that I lost by the holidays, and slowly build up a Blu-Ray collection.
Hopefully in a year or two I'll be addicted again and have replaced at least 100 of the essential movies I lost.
And FURTHERMORE, this is my signature! SERIOUSLY! Did you think I was still talking about my point?
YES!
I am a movie fan.
I started collecting with Laserdiscs and have not stopped.
Lasers were the first format to use letterboxing and the were at broadcast spec, rather than the 420 lines of VHS. Of course lasers were expensive so I was limited in what I could afford to buy.
DVD opened things up for me even thought I ended up re-buying a lot of my favorite titles, but the collection felt more "complete".
Now I am moving to BD but I am limiting my re-purchases to the big widescreen classics I love so much.
Most of my collection is older movies '1930's - 1980's. Only Pixar and Disney titles are newer films.
I enjoy collecting movies and searching through my collection for films to watch again. Holidays have special films, and moods generally determine what I watch.
Streaming is the future - but the future is not here yet. What I enjoy now about streaming is the documentaries and odd specialty films. As a matter of fact I have found three of my favorite film on streaming (NETFLIX) that were never released on DVD.
... but collecting is in my nature. As I kid I collected LPs of Film Scores, now I get to buy copies of the real FILMS! COOL.
Ric