[Lateralus]

For the longest time, I held off on buying movies unless I saw something I really wanted.

But for the past year or so, I've been snagging movies and box sets left and right. So much so that my DVD collection has grown enormously over what it was.

But as large as it is now, I still remember being absolutely daunted by the size of the DVD collections in people's homes I have come across. Entire walls worth of movies...

So, anyways, I figured this would be an interesting poll. A nice way to see how many movie maniacs we have in our midst.

I'm counting each disc in my box sets singularly, rather than entire sets as one movie. So, try to do the same.

I'm counting 213. (Yes, I was bored and actually counted)

[awaspaas]

621

[Aquataris]

147. I counted concert discs as well. Movies alone would only be about 100 or maybe less.

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by awaspaas 

621

Not that I'm doubting you, but that'd be something cool to see. Got a pic?

[Aquataris]

I'd like to see 621 VHS tapes. Anybody got that?

[Oisín]

Depends how you count them...

I have 26 single-disc boxes (movies, and a couple of concert DVDs). Then I have the TV show box sets that contain anything from three to ten discs per box—do they count as however many discs are in each of them? If so, then I have 93 all in all.

This is, of course, excluding the approximately 250 more that I managed to forget in Beijing Airport in December 2004 (I temporarily neglected to take into account that the concept of carry-on luggage implies that you actually carry the luggage on to the aircraft, rather than leaving it standing on the floor by security check).

[Aquataris]

That has got to be the worst air travel story I have ever heard.

I bet that was the longest flight of your life. Or did you not remember until you landed?

[brassplayersrock²]

a bit over 300

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Aquataris 

That has got to be the worst air travel story I have ever heard.

I bet that was the longest flight of your life. Or did you not remember until you landed?

Only noticed it when I was gathering my things to get off the plane in Helsinki, by which time it was obviously far too late.

It wasn’t too bad though, since they were all cheap pirated Chinese DVDs, so they had cost me about $150 all in all, I’d guess. A lot of them were pretty crap movies, too, that I’d only bought because they were so dirt cheap, and might as well just have chucked anyway.

[Aquataris]

So the asians did you a favor by re-circulating them back into the depths of Asian hell.

[JoshuaZ]

I think I have around 160 or so. I don't really know these days. I should take the time and oraganize them.

I just went through a phase in college where it was easier and cheaper for me to buy a $9 DVD then it was for me to dive to the next town over and rent one. It worked out in the end though because nothing is mroe valuable when living abroad then a good collection of movies from home. (Well, maybe not the MOST valuable, but really really handy)

[iLikebeer]

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ 

I think I have around 160 or so. I don't really know these days. I should take the time and oraganize them.

I just went through a phase in college where it was easier and cheaper for me to buy a $9 DVD then it was for me to dive to the next town over and rent one. It worked out in the end though because nothing is mroe valuable when living abroad then a good collection of movies from home. (Well, maybe not the MOST valuable, but really really handy)

yeah, those cheap DVDs keep me going back to walmart.

i'm probably around 375, but i'm not buying many movies till an HD format wins or HDDVD has another great deal.

[Sealobo]

I have enough to open a DVD rental.

[awaspaas]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Not that I'm doubting you, but that'd be something cool to see. Got a pic?

Not very interesting, just 2 big IKEA Billy bookcases - one is filled to the top, it holds around 400 DVDs. The other has two empty shelves. BTW, that's just a count of the packages - if I counted each disc of multi-disc TV seasons and such it would be quite a bit more.

[0157988944]

7.

I don't ever want to watch a movie more than twice. Paying to own DVDs is stupid for me.

[mindwaves]

I only have 1 -- the only one worthwhile.

[Lateralus]

Fantastic movie.

I received it on VHS as a gift back in the day. Watched it so many times that I have no desire to either buy it on DVD or watch it again anytime this decade.

Fantastic movie nevertheless.

[Mithras]

Zero. I have a great video store around the corner, and at $1.25 for same-night rental, it's hard to beat.

[Rumor]

Originally Posted by Aquataris 

I'd like to see 621 VHS tapes. Anybody got that?

My grandmother used to have a collection of over 1000 VHS tapes, most with two or three movies on them. Took up two long walls of her house.

[imitchellg5]

I only have 13 DVDs that I've got over 4 years... pretty wimpy. My family really never watches movies... if there's something I want to see I rent it and watch it with a friend. On the other hand, we do have quite a few VHS tapes still around... we were late adopters of DVDs.

[Aquataris]

Wow.

[mduell]

225, all ripped to my externals so I don't have to pull the disks out.

[brassplayersrock²]

i have two of those 250 disk zip up binders you can get at bestbuy and i have one filled and the other about half full.

having a used dvd/cd store around the corner is nice sometimes.

[ort888]

200 is your max? I think you'll be shocked to see how many some people have.

I've seen people on DVD boards with 2,000 and more. Collections of 500 to 1,000 are the norm.

Between my wife and I, we have about 250.

[Laminar]

I have an awful attention span, and it's unlikely that I'll watch a movie more than once. I probably own 10 DVDs and about that many VHS tapes, and I never ever watch any of them.

[brassplayersrock²]

they're good background noise when I'm working. keeps me focused on what I need to do. Usually I start a movie and minimize the DVD player window and do my work.

[shifuimam]

234 physical DVDs:

130 movies (21 are two-disc sets, plus the four-disc extended edition of The Chronicles of Narnia)
15 box sets (Futurama, Seinfeld, Gilmore Girls)

Hopefully more after Christmas is over, if any of my family is willing to actually look at my Amazon wishlist.

[Aquataris]

I love movies, but most of them don't seem worth buying anymore. My money tends to go toward CDs.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² 

they're good background noise when I'm working. keeps me focused on what I need to do. Usually I start a movie and minimize the DVD player window and do my work.

Oh, I can't stand TV/Movies while trying to study, but I have to have music on. My roommate last year had to have the TV on though, which sucked because I ended up never getting anything done.

[brassplayersrock²]

i think the conversations within the movie is what does it for me. i've tried music but it doesn't seem to work as well.

[Goldfinger]

Around 290 movies/series. Not counting every disc, just the boxes.

[CaseCom]

Movies: 126
TV season sets or miniseries: 37

[red rocket]

Around forty, box sets counted as one. I have around a thousand films on VHS, don't really see the point in buying the crap all over again. There's nothing good coming out these days, anyway.

[PB2K]

i hate dvd.

it's a horrible type of media that can barely hold more data than cd. before watching a movie i have to endure a few minutes of disclaimers and anti-piracy b.s. that i really don't care about. and the regioncode thing is pathetic.

i just gave away 200+ VHS tapes. for the rest i watch DIVX

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by PB2K 

i hate dvd.

it's a horrible type of media that can barely hold more data than cd.

Uh...yes...because an 8GB dual layer disc can only hold over 10 times the data as a 750MB CD...

[Eug]

I generally don't buy DVDs anymore. I end up usually buying HD DVDs, or else I buy nothing.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Rumor 

My grandmother used to have a collection of over 1000 VHS tapes, most with two or three movies on them. Took up two long walls of her house.

My father's friend in Greece has about that many Betamax tapes with movies on them...

When you go to his mother's house you can see them all along the walls of her living room, and the Betamax machine from the early 80's is hooked up to the equally old TV from the same time period.

Then next to the old TV is the 20 inch widescreen with the DVD player. And his mother has just *2* DVDs.

[Faust]

I have four box sets and 5 single DVDs. Not much really.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Uh...yes...because an 8GB dual layer disc can only hold over 10 times the data as a 750MB CD...

That's really not much more.

Not these days.

And every single other point he makes I completely agree on.

[Gankdawg]

I counted ours about a year ago and found about 150. I was shocked we had so many and we stopped buying so many.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by analogika 

That's really not much more.

Not these days.

It's not much in the world of 1080p, but a dual-layer DVD certainly holds a considerably larger amount of data than a CD-R. That's just objective numbers - 8GB > 750MB.

And every single other point he makes I completely agree on.

The problem is that the advent of HDMI (data with your video signal) is going to make all the region coding and anti-piracy warnings seem like nothing compared to the anti-piracy schemes you're going to start seeing once a format standard is finally determined.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The problem is that the advent of HDMI (data with your video signal) is going to make all the region coding and anti-piracy warnings seem like nothing compared to the anti-piracy schemes you're going to start seeing once a format standard is finally determined.

That may be true.

But at least the video quality will be worth paying for.

[Calimus]

I used to be big on the idea of owning movies until I looked at the 15 or so dvd's I had purchased and realized that I had watched each only once, and could rarely remember ever wanting to rewatch a movie I had seen in the past. Once netflix came around, I found that I could get [close to] the same value and service for a tiny fraction of the cost.

Of course there's the "I've got this cool collection" factor, but really, why spend thousands of dollars on something that your kids will be throwing in a dumpster in 15-20 years down the road if you haven't thrown them away already after repurchasing your collection in yet another new format.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Calimus 

I used to be big on the idea of owning movies until I looked at the 15 or so dvd's I had purchased and realized that I had watched each only once, and could rarely remember ever wanting to rewatch a movie I had seen in the past. Once netflix came around, I found that I could get [close to] the same value and service for a tiny fraction of the cost.

Of course there's the "I've got this cool collection" factor, but really, why spend thousands of dollars on something that your kids will be throwing in a dumpster in 15-20 years down the road if you haven't thrown them away already after repurchasing your collection in yet another new format.

This is true. Sometimes I wonder if I own too many DVDs. We weren't allowed to own videos or watch TV or anything when I was growing up, so I guess I'm compensating for years of having no screen-based entertainment in my life.

To my credit, though, most of the DVDs I own I have watched many times since I purchased them. Some are obviously not watched as often as others, but the 80's movies, Lindsay Lohan movies (shut up), and Clueless have been watched countless times now. And I am freakishly well-versed on minute details about Gilmore Girls.

But like other people here mentioned, I use DVDs as background noise. Which is probably bad since my TV sucks a lot more energy at 250W than my stereo. Oh well.

[Dakarʒ]

Buying DVDs only burns me when I gamble on something that looks good and it sucks. That said, I stopped buying Movies on DVD almost two years ago.

[JoshuaZ]

Originally Posted by iLikebeer 

yeah, those cheap DVDs keep me going back to walmart.

i'm probably around 375, but i'm not buying many movies till an HD format wins or HDDVD has another great deal.

He he he.. I didn't even count the 50 or so DVDs I've picked up when I was in China, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Thank you Asia for giving me all of Monty Python's Flying Circus for $20.