Since the pandemic I’ve been collecting DVDs and Blu-rays, because I started getting into filmmaking and valued the importance of physical media. One of my reasons was the horror stories I’ve read about licenses on DRM-protected purchases being revoked.

After we moved to a much smaller house, my Billy bookshelf containing around 200+ titles has been taking a huge amount of space. And the cases just sit there looking pretty. We never use the discs. There’s no Blu-ray player in our house. We all watch digital content on portable devices. I’ve filled up several hard drives with so many obscure, international films that will never get distribution here. And so, I’ve stopped buying discs. It’s also much more convenient to be able to play MKVs on every device in my house.

I was one of those people who constantly purchased discs to remux and encode them myself for use on a future server, but that’s a waste of time, energy and money as there are dozens of release groups who’ve done the work already for me.

It doesn’t make sense to keep all the clutter around. I also have 500+ DVDs in a binder with the cover art stored in folders, but it seems like a gigantic waste of money to buy a storage system for outdated standard definition media, when most studios have remastered editions readily available.

I’m thinking of selling the Blu-rays that aren’t rare to buy a cheapo Optiplex. The discs are already pretty worthless. I’m just scared that I might regret this decision.

  • Mr_McGuggins@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    Personally I keep all my stuff. If the file gets lost or damaged I don’t need another copy, I can just grab mine and rescan it. Plus DVDs play in almost all of my machines (I installed a DVD drive in most of them) so there’s that.

  • 77765876543@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    Remux 4K on the NAS. Discs only if I can’t find what I’m looking for with other means. Then rip and shelve until someone I know wants them.

    Reminds me of back in the day when cd’s went to mp3. I had spindles of retail cd’s that I couldn’t fit into binders. Ripped everything to flac and gave away the cd’s.

    Everything is digital/streaming now.

  • xenago@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    I would never do this, personally. But it depends on the collection - mine consists almost entirely of 3D movies… most are out of print and many are now quite rare. If it’s a bunch of easy-to-find titles then that’s a different story

  • Kritchsgau@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    Yeah managed to sell all my dvds and blurays to a collector trying to line his basement media room with them.

  • fediverser@alien.top
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    10 months ago

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  • cubic_sq@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    Used to be the case in some countries that physical media is proof you have purchased legally. Even if you just keep the disks on a spindle (aka the spindles from writable media packs). This is how i keep my original media in the back of the cupboard.

  • Boogertwilliams@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    I did throw out boxes and put them all in a folder. Saved tons of space. Simply could not keep them all like they were

  • flappy-doodles@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    I gave away most of my DVDs to a couple who live on a mountain with no internets, I gave away most of my CDs to a music hoarder.

    I found myself in a loop where I’d rip all of my physical media, then rarely consume any of it, then some new format would come out, I’d get larger drives and re-rip everything, and rarely consume it. I had to break the cycle.

  • Tha_Watcher@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    I don’t throw out anything. I keep physical and digital media. Of course, I have a lot of rooms to store it.

  • jakuri69@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    My shelves are full of anime figurines. I don’t have space to store DVDs.

  • RamblingThomas@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    I’ve started throwing out DVD cases, but keeping the disks in a DVD binder like you. Still keeping the Blu-ray cases on the shelves for now.

  • momasf@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    I threw away my DVDs years back. With >1200 physical books in my 650sq ft apartment, I’m thinking of getting rid of some genre paperbacks, and replacing them with electronic versions. I’ve got a ton of collectible hardbacks, which I’ll keep forever.

  • pohotu3@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    I keep my physical discs. I do however throw out the cases and put the discs themselves into a 400 disc binder. They take up a lot less space and then I can bring them with if I go someplace without Internet or pull them out if my Plex server crashes and I can’t be bothered to fix it.