DVD Obsession: How to afford and justify it

[Polybius]

[...] and have actually been known to dream up potential special edition releases of favourite films, replete with appropriate extras. So I too, am sick in my own way.

That was the basis of a thread at the last incarnation of the board. We got lots of creative entries

[THX1378]

I still live with my parents but if I didn't I'd have big problems paying my bills or rent since I buy about 3-6 dvds a week. My parents had a video store about 7 years ago. It was a little mom and pop store but that helped fuel my collecting VHS and lasers. Once DVD hit I started to sell off one by one each of my VHS's and lasers when the DVD would come out. The only lasers I have kept are the one's that the DVD has no extras or has different extra's than the lasers *Taxi Driver, Bram Stokers Dracula, Supercop*

And the other key to expanding your collection at a cheaper price - try not to buy retail. Some titles you can't help. But I've come to love used record stores, Amazon, and Ebay. Also, I've found out lately that the Used DVD section at Media Play is a great place to find niche titles.

I agree bcsparker. Since I work for Longs Drugs one of the best things is that we get about 15 copys of a new major release then about 2 or 3 of the smaller films for rent each week. After about 30 to 60 days we pull to make room and sell off the used copys for $7.99 and since I work there I get it discounted to $4.00. So as long as I wait about a month or two I can get a DVD of Spiderman 2 for about 75% off what it would be for me to buy it at a place like Best Buy. Other things to do and places to check are:

Check davisdvd.com every week since they update the prices for most retail stores for the DVD's coming out that week and compare and find the best sale for that DVD. The best places seem to be Target and Best Buy.

I have found that checking out the local Wherehouse Music is the best place to find used Criterion DVD's. The first week Naked Lunch came out I found a used copy there for $18.99. It also helps to get friendly with one of the workers at a store like that so you can give them a list so when something is turned in you'll be the first called to get it.

Check online at places like half.com, overstock.com, ebay ect. to see what deals they have on DVDs.

I wouldn't have the collection I have today if it wasn't for me buying most of my stuff used. Thats about the only way I think anyone can go if their on a budget and want to keep their collection growning.

[brandofo]

Hello. My name is Brandon and I am addicted to DVDs. I realize it is a disease and I have no control over it. I am ready to start the 12 disc program... er, the 12 step program.

Thank you.

[HerrSchreck]

How tall is your kevyip? We ask that first and foremost to assess your personal disaster-state when admitting you to our tobacco-smoke filled room with the chipped roundtable. Bring donuts and coffee too when you come back from counting.

[domino harvey]

Which step is making amends with Benson's World?

[Sanjuro]

I go to my local store, look at the latest relases which are all about 4000-6000 yen and think "I could get 4 or 5 movies from the US for the same price!". So I do.

Then I buy the local ones anyway...Doh!

[Cosmic Bus]

Over the past year or so, I've stopped being able to justify a large collection and am continually trying to trim it down -- at its largest, I probably had around 800 or so, and have gotten things to a more managable 400'ish. Wouldn't mind halving that, even.

My issue is that I do enjoy buying movies, knowing full well I'm likely to watch them once, never even look at the extras, and then onto the shelf they go. Even my favorite films have only been viewed (theatrically and home) three, maybe four times if I'm feeling generous. As with music, just having something new all the time is part of why I'm in the whole collect/sell/collect/sell revolving door. Netflix has helped slow the purchases, and great deals no longer pull me in the way they used to. I do import now and then when renting or seeing the film elsewhere isn't an option, but those are usually easily traded or sold away.

[Hopscotch]

So today I felt obligated to count my kevyip, and as a low-key DVD freak I seem pretty healthy. It's only about ten high, unless you count my little shoebox of John Ford VHS tapes (this adds another 8 movies or so). My list of DVDs to buy is another thing entirely though. That's the disease I have. The "list of DVDs to buy" making disease. I've probably written down 200 titles in 2 months, and I don't buy more than 1 or 2 DVDs a week, unless it's a set or I've got a lot of cash to throw around. The list grows longer and longer, and my despair just deepens and deepens. Help me. I need Netflix.

Also, a potentially funny/ridiculous anecdote about how much money I spent on DVDs at Borders two years ago:
Borders used to have this facet of their rewards program where they'd put 5% of the money you spent in a year there on a "gift" account they gave you come November or something. You should have seen the cashier's face in December when I scanned my rewards card and there was enough money to get the whole Antoine Doinel set FREE, with money still left over. "Robbery without a gun" he said, which was the first time I'd heard that phrase. I swear Borders stopped doing that because they saw my receipt.

[MichaelB]

The best solution is to become a DVD critic - that way half the discs you get are free, and you can justify the other half as "research".

Works for me, anyway.

That said, the downside is that I very rarely have enough time just to sit down and watch something for pleasure any more...

[Tommaso]

The best solution is to become a DVD critic - that way half the discs you get are free, and you can justify the other half as "research".

Works for me, anyway.

That said, the downside is that I very rarely have enough time just to sit down and watch something for pleasure any more...

I have the feeling that many of us here have become 'hobby dvd critics' anyway... I mean, instead of us all enjoying "Thief of Bagdad" (the film) we sit down, post screen caps, and talk endlessly about the most minute differences between editions that most other people wouldn't care for or even perceive. It's insane, but also entertaining

That way, there's less time to reduce the kevyip, of course. But I wonder why one should 'justify' buying dvds in the first place. Would any such question arise at all if we were dealing with books, and not films? Did anyone who has a complete Goethe edition at home actually read the whole of it? Probably not (specialists aside), but with literature it's more like a cultural artifact and completely 'honourable'. I guess building up a huge dvd library seems more 'dubious' because film still seems to be not as accepted as 'high culture' as literature is. Which of course is deplorable.

[tojoed]

Hello. My name is Brandon and I am addicted to DVDs. I realize it is a disease and I have no control over it. I am ready to start the 12 disc program... er, the 12 step program.

Thank you.

The first step in the 12 disc programme is:

1) We admitted we were powerless over our kevyip - that our shelves had become unmanageable.
The rest of the steps to be added by recovering forum members.
Unfortunately, kevyip cannot be your sponsor as he has never had the pile to which I gave his name. But Herr Schreck can, as he is fully recovered.

[Awesome Welles]

Over the past year or so, I've stopped being able to justify a large collection and am continually trying to trim it down -- at its largest, I probably had around 800 or so, and have gotten things to a more managable 400'ish. Wouldn't mind halving that, even.

I amin exactly the same boat at it's largest probably about 900 and now down to about 600, I am continually looking for stuff to trade and would to get down to about 100-200 discs though every time I look over my collection I think well I can't trade that! and I'll want to see that soon! I am going to try to watch and trade but it is hard when you have amassed so much.

Netflix has helped slow the purchases, and great deals no longer pull me in the way they used to. I do import now and then when renting or seeing the film elsewhere isn't an option, but those are usually easily traded or sold away.

Lovefilm has helped me slow the purchases down also and the deals always seem to look less attractive this way, I think for anyone with a buying problem renting is a good option. Though I do import a lot too as there are many films I want to see which aren't rentable. Though I feel incredibly guilty renting when I still have a kevyip of over 100 discs which takes even longer to reduce.

For anyone in the UK I can't recommend Lovefilm enough what I do is stay with them for about six months, leave, reduce my kevyip and then sooner or later a letter comes through the door saying come back to Lovefilm here's three months free! I've done this twice now and am going for my third stint, all in all I have paid for about six months and been a member for double that.

[Belmondo]

I keep my favorite DVDs on higher shelves away from little hands and my cats who once "sprayed" on my record collection. It took me years of counselling to recover from that and I also learned to avoid impulse buying and put EVERYTHING on my Netflix queue.
This strategy has failed completely as I then buy them and remove them from my queue.
Somebody help me.

[colinr0380]

I amin exactly the same boat at it's largest probably about 900 and now down to about 600, I am continually looking for stuff to trade and would to get down to about 100-200 discs though every time I look over my collection I think well I can't trade that! and I'll want to see that soon! I am going to try to watch and trade but it is hard when you have amassed so much.

I know the feeling - you know you are in trouble when you sit down to look through your collection for something to throw on casually at 6p.m. and are still there rifling through boxes, reading covers, occasionally going on the Internet to find out the reaction to a film, stacking things up and debating whether to put this or that film on at 1 or 2 a.m.!

Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, I love rifling through them as much as watching films themselves! (that is also where I find commentaries come in handy, as I can have them or an isolated music score on in the background while I'm deciding what I'm really going to watch!)

It is also why I keep putting off transferring my 'video wall' (my literal wall of VHS tapes that I've recorded from TV broadcasts since 1993 - up to 2,500 tapes now!) to storage boxes in the garage - I like just looking over from my computer and casually scanning the titles which would be much harder to do if they were all packed away! (I'll have to put them away and put the titles in a word document or something though for easy reference, as I'm really starting to need the space for my DVDs!) It is just good to be able to easily pick up and finally watch that copy of Until The End Of The World that I recorded back in 1997 and only watched again a couple of weeks ago! (and then end up watching Summer With Monika, Frankenstein Created Woman and Butterfly Kiss that I had forgotten were on the same tape! - though I'm still a bit freaked out by the nipple rings and chains combo that Amanda Plummer sports in the Winterbottom film!)

[GaryC]

The best solution is to become a DVD critic - that way half the discs you get are free, and you can justify the other half as "research".

Works for me, anyway.

That said, the downside is that I very rarely have enough time just to sit down and watch something for pleasure any more...

What he said.

[brandofo]

DVDs Anonymous 12 Step Program

1. We admitted we were powerless over purchasing movies—that our shelves had become unmanageable, or at least disorganized.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will, our lives, and our DVD collections over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and our DVD collections.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, namely frivilous purchases of substandard DVDs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character and defective DVDs.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our DVD collection's shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory of our DVDs and when we were wrong to purchase a title, we promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to DVD addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

[GringoTex]

My kevyip numbers about 150 (I wasn't making that up in the other thread). But I love having a library of unwatched films waiting for me every night.

I still buy everything I'm remotely interested in, but in the past six months, I've begun to sell, trade, giveaway the dvds I don't think I'll ever watch again. It's progress.

[HerrSchreck]

I love that fact that kevyip turned into a board meme. It's not even tongue in cheek anymore-- it's as smooth as saying "Holy Cow" and not even realizing you're referencing the bovine kingdom.

[Kinsayder]

DVDs Anonymous 12 Step Program

Using the formula R = 100 - (k/n * 100), where R is my stage of recovery (expressed as a percentage), k is my kevyip and n is my total number of DVDs purchased, I'm 76% of the way towards a normal, healthy kevyip-free lifestyle.

[tojoed]

My Kinsayder Quotient (if I may call it that) is currently 82%. I'm trying to get it higher, so that all I have left is The Complete Works of Charles Laughton.

[kaujot]

DVDs Anonymous 12 Step Program

Using the formula R = 100 - (k/n * 100), where R is my stage of recovery (expressed as a percentage), k is my kevyip and n is my total number of DVDs purchased, I'm 76% of the way towards a normal, healthy kevyip-free lifestyle.

How does one calculate one's keyvip?

[Belmondo]

My Kinsayder Quotient (if I may call it that) is currently 82%. I'm trying to get it higher, so that all I have left is The Complete Works of Charles Laughton.

Narrow it down to films directed by him and you go to 99%

[Chull]

3. Made a decision to turn our will, our lives, and our DVD collections over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Sure, just as long as I don't haveta give 'em to anyone else.

My KQ is 52%. God help me.

[Cabiria21]

I don't have 'fancy' tastes in anything but DVD collecting, so I would rather eat a frozen dinner than go out to a restaraunt, and I prefer Old Country Buffet or a good Taqueria over formal sit-down places. I also wear and preserve clothes for years, changing fashion trends be damned.

This is how I comfortably have aquired nearly the entire MoC collection, 150+ Criterions, and a wealth of essential DVD's from all over the world.

I also get my hair cut at Great Clips for 5.99. It grows back.

and also striking on great deals. I picked up 45 titles on the Madman $10AU sale, sold about half, basically got the other half free.

[Kinsayder]

How does one calculate one's keyvip?

Start at the bottom of your unwatched pile and keep counting until you get to the top (if you can reach it).