Collecting and Watching

[TripleHBK]

Originally Posted by mpengle

I understand the sentiment behind your reasoning but this is a fairly weak analogy. Even if I had an unlimited amount of time and was still a big reader, I would never read even half the books in my local library because I have no interest in reading them. Same goes for a streaming service such as Netflix. Just because I have access to the media doesn't mean I care about half of what is available.

To be fair and to sound a bit hypocritical probably though I have a major backlog on movies/tv shows but I'm buying stuff I absolutely want to watch myself. What good is a unwatched media library to me in the end if much of it is unwatched.

How do you know what you are going to want to watch a month from now, a year from now, 5 years from now? For many of us we build libraries of titles that look interesting but may not be something we intend to watch anytime soon due to knowing ourselves well enough to make predictions on future interests, but also in that buying now when something is on sale or dirt cheap will likely save us money later on.

I've never been much of a Western fan but I recognized that part of having a well rounded library of films was having films that fell outside of my interests at this point in time and so I've acquired a small selection of Westerns. After a few years I found myself in a Western mood and marathoned all of them. Every single one was a blind buy that was purchased due to their reputation and the cheap prices I had found them at over the years. It was a really fun experience to have so many titles to instantly jump into and watch without needing to spend a dime at that moment.

It's important to note that for many of us with Libraries of films we've figured out our priorities in life and likely have no intent on selling off our collections either. We aren't the folks that rack up huge amounts of debt and then need to sell off the collection on a whim to pay the bills because we were focused on buying every single Marvel Movie the day it releases (for example). For years I've tracked my spending patterns (and shared them here with others on site) and have always put family and other obligations first. With Dollar Tree now offering titles for $1 and so many sales and other avenues to acquire films very cheaply, I buy when the prices are good and then wait until I'm in the mood to watch them. This means I may have a substantial collection of unwatched films but in the end my goal is to hopefully, eventually, get around to watching them when the mood hits me... whenever that is.

[Batman90]

I’ve bought a lot of movies lately and haven’t watched half of them yet. I’ve been to busy playing video games.

[meremortal]

Originally Posted by Batman90

I’ve bought a lot of movies lately and haven’t watched half of them yet. I’ve been to busy playing video games.

Diversification of interests arguably helps as well. It may not help get around to watching as many movies, but I think having multiple hobbies is great. It's kind of odd when I watch some of the YT 'movie collectors' and they don't seem to know anything going on in the world other than movies/collecting.

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by mpengle

I understand the sentiment behind your reasoning but this is a fairly weak analogy. Even if I had an unlimited amount of time and was still a big reader, I would never read even half the books in my local library because I have no interest in reading them. Same goes for a streaming service such as Netflix. Just because I have access to the media doesn't mean I care about half of what is available.

To be fair and to sound a bit hypocritical probably though I have a major backlog on movies/tv shows but I'm buying stuff I absolutely want to watch myself. What good is a unwatched media library to me in the end if much of it is unwatched.

You don't understand what I was saying at all. Your entire response is completely off the mark as a result. And your closing remark. I don't even know where to begin. To each his own I guess. Whether I get around to watching every title in my library is beside the point. I simply enjoy having several hundred titles in my library at any given time I haven't watched yet. It makes browsing for something new to watch far more interesting. I find value in that. It's no different than browsing the library of streams offered by Netflix or browsing the shelves at my public library for something to read. I'm just not relying on someone else to provide the library for me. I'm building it myself and again, it's not just for me. It's for my friends and family as well. When I'm gone it will be there for others to enjoy, to sell, to give away, whatever. What do I care. You can't take any of this crap with you anyway so.

[monwobbbo]

Originally Posted by TripleHBK

How do you know what you are going to want to watch a month from now, a year from now, 5 years from now? For many of us we build libraries of titles that look interesting but may not be something we intend to watch anytime soon due to knowing ourselves well enough to make predictions on future interests, but also in that buying now when something is on sale or dirt cheap will likely save us money later on.

I've never been much of a Western fan but I recognized that part of having a well rounded library of films was having films that fell outside of my interests at this point in time and so I've acquired a small selection of Westerns. After a few years I found myself in a Western mood and marathoned all of them. Every single one was a blind buy that was purchased due to their reputation and the cheap prices I had found them at over the years. It was a really fun experience to have so many titles to instantly jump into and watch without needing to spend a dime at that moment.

It's important to note that for many of us with Libraries of films we've figured out our priorities in life and likely have no intent on selling off our collections either. We aren't the folks that rack up huge amounts of debt and then need to sell off the collection on a whim to pay the bills because we were focused on buying every single Marvel Movie the day it releases (for example). For years I've tracked my spending patterns (and shared them here with others on site) and have always put family and other obligations first. With Dollar Tree now offering titles for $1 and so many sales and other avenues to acquire films very cheaply, I buy when the prices are good and then wait until I'm in the mood to watch them. This means I may have a substantial collection of unwatched films but in the end my goal is to hopefully, eventually, get around to watching them when the mood hits me... whenever that is.

Interesting view. I do find it a bit self defeating though. Out of those westerns how many will you make an effort to watch again? I am a collector but have had to learn to resist my impulses. I only buy titles I know will hold my interest in the long run. If I 'm not sure I will watch it at least once every 2 years them its a no go. Ended up with tons of dvds that got wat hed once ( or not at all) doing things as you do. I even have to give real thought into Dollar Tree purchases.

[mpengle]

Originally Posted by AmishParadise

You don't understand what I was saying at all. Your entire response is completely off the mark as a result. And your closing remark. I don't even know where to begin. To each his own I guess. Whether I get around to watching every title in my library is beside the point. I simply enjoy having several hundred titles in my library at any given time I haven't watched yet. It makes browsing for something new to watch far more interesting. I find value in that. It's no different than browsing the library of streams offered by Netflix or browsing the shelves at my public library for something to read. I'm just not relying on someone else to provide the library for me. I'm building it myself and again, it's not just for me. It's for my friends and family as well. When I'm gone it will be there for others to enjoy, to sell, to give away, whatever. What do I care. You can't take any of this crap with you anyway so.

First off hopefully my response wasn't found to be insulting or something as it wasn't meant to be that way. I should have added that to my first reply. Anyway, it is very possibly I misconstrued what your main point was but with your public library response and this second reply, I feel like I was not off the mark. I myself have several hundred movies/tv shows that I have not watched. As I mentioned, I myself have a huge backlog so I do have a big set of titles to browse through when wanting to watch something new. But every single title I own, even never watched, at least held some type of interest to me when first buying it, something I would want to watch. But that's quite different than a public library which generally just loads up any titles that are new, popular, etc without any care about genre, type, etc. They are stocking their shelves with everything so anyone can hopefully find something they want. That's a different idea than the titles in my personal collection. I do have so many titles now I don't think I have the time to eventually watch every single thing I own, but everything in it is something I at least had a general if not high interest in. Now if that's the idea behind your collecting, I get it, many people collect titles due to price, availability or whatever. I'm sort of stuck between those people who just collect movies to build their library and those who buy only want they really want to have. I buy all kinds of titles/genres if I feel the title interests me, but never buy anything if I don't have at least a passing interest in it.

[mpengle]

Originally Posted by TripleHBK

How do you know what you are going to want to watch a month from now, a year from now, 5 years from now? For many of us we build libraries of titles that look interesting but may not be something we intend to watch anytime soon due to knowing ourselves well enough to make predictions on future interests, but also in that buying now when something is on sale or dirt cheap will likely save us money later on.

I've never been much of a Western fan but I recognized that part of having a well rounded library of films was having films that fell outside of my interests at this point in time and so I've acquired a small selection of Westerns. After a few years I found myself in a Western mood and marathoned all of them. Every single one was a blind buy that was purchased due to their reputation and the cheap prices I had found them at over the years. It was a really fun experience to have so many titles to instantly jump into and watch without needing to spend a dime at that moment.

It's important to note that for many of us with Libraries of films we've figured out our priorities in life and likely have no intent on selling off our collections either. We aren't the folks that rack up huge amounts of debt and then need to sell off the collection on a whim to pay the bills because we were focused on buying every single Marvel Movie the day it releases (for example). For years I've tracked my spending patterns (and shared them here with others on site) and have always put family and other obligations first. With Dollar Tree now offering titles for $1 and so many sales and other avenues to acquire films very cheaply, I buy when the prices are good and then wait until I'm in the mood to watch them. This means I may have a substantial collection of unwatched films but in the end my goal is to hopefully, eventually, get around to watching them when the mood hits me... whenever that is.

I obviously wouldn't know exactly what I want to watch say 10 years from now. But as stated I do have a large enough collection that I can find something I'd like to see. What I do know is I wouldn't want to watch a documentary about the rainforests in Africa today and will likely never want to see that so I won't buy a title like that any time soon. If I suddenly got some weird bug to watch something like that 7 years from now I am quite sure I could easily find something like that to watch on YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, or other avenues. To add to what I said before though, the local library near my house WOULD have a title like that…. The main thing though is I am not going to randomly purchase things I have zero interest now in the expectation that years from now my tastes will be greatly different. That's just odd to me…

[Moe UK]

Originally Posted by slimdude

The bad thing about buying a lot of movies without watching any of them is that, you'll have hundreds of unopened movies accumulating, not being watched, and you don't know if they're defected or not. Whenever you do decide to finally open a movie to watch it and it's defected (months or years later), you can't exchange nor return it because, the exchange/return time frame from the retailer has exceeded, then you'll be stuck with a brand new defected movie, that you can't do anything about. That's money down the toilet.

I normally open and rip the disc to my home server, this is a real quick way to make sure the disc isn't defective. I have only had two discs that I have ever had to send back both within the last year funnily enough. Neither would work in my player.

Originally Posted by Thomas Veil

A third category would be staring at your collection trying to figure out what to watch...this sometimes wastes more time than I care to admit. I like to call it movie picking paralysis.

I have my Plex server movies organised into categories so when I sit down I decide what I am in the mood for, Comedy, Action, martial arts, Drama etc and makes it much easier to browse and select something. Although nowadays I tend to plan out what days I will have time for a movie in the evening and decide ahead of time what films to watch.

[Deezer1986]

We own around 1300 movies. The bottom shelf is for unwatched movies. I’d say we have around 60 unwatched out of the whole collection. I think that’s a pretty good average. If we see that we can no longer fit any movies in the bottom shelf we stop buying and work our way through them a bit. If we just threw them into the collection they would get forgotten about.

[Deezer1986]

Originally Posted by joonskeezle

I have a lot of stuff I haven't watched yet, but I still watch plenty. My shopping/browsing time (and some of my foruming time) tends to be during the day when I can't really sit down to watch a movie or a show.

There are still those odd occasions where I'll spend a good hour or more just window shopping, so to speak, and at the end of that I'm like "what the **** am I doing" but that rarely eats into time I would otherwise spend watching something.

As for the "buy now watch later" mindset....there's something called FOMO ("Fear of Missing Out"). It can mean different things depending on the context, but with blu ray movies it often means one thing: If I don't buy this movie or this TV show now, it will invariably and suddenly go out of print tomorrow and by next week copies will cost $200. Obviously an exaggeration, and that sort of thing doesn't happen often, but it happens just often enough that this paranoid mindset feels slightly justified.

So yeah, I'll buy something that I know I probably won't watch immediately if I think there's a chance it'll randomly go out of print.

Another common situation is this: I'll buy something because I absolutely want to watch it as soon as possible, and my mindset is that as soon as it arrives, I'll watch it that night. Then in the time it takes to arrive at my door (usually just a couple days), I'll have moved on and will want to watch something else and that movie will get chucked on the pile. This is the one aspect of my movie buying habit that I know is a problem.

In general, for me it's enough to know I will 100% eventually watch something to justify getting it if I can; I'm less concerned about exactly when I will watch any given thing. Whether I buy it now or I buy it later, the money is spent, and in most cases it will be cheaper to get it now than later.

One mindset I have absolutely abandoned is the notion of buying TV show seasons as they come out, thinking "I need to show my support so they keep releasing these on blu ray." That **** is more or less over. Now, with few exceptions, I don't touch a TV show on blu ray until the whole thing is over and it's all been released on blu ray.

Looking at you Shameless, and The Deuce.

I completely get FOMO. That’s why I usually prioritize the stuff from the boutiques first.

[Ricky G]

I definitely collect more than I watch. I need to be better about watching my HUGE backlog, but its my hobby and as a married dude with a wife that doesn't share the same passion, I tend to give her more of my time. She is pretty supportive of my hobby though, and she does watch some Blu's and 4Ks with me from time to time!

[dvining]

I collect movies I like, so I view it as a curated selection of movie history. I feel confident opening the doors to my collection (literal doors, it's in a closet) to anyone in my family and saying, "You'll find some good stuff in here."

When I first started collected right after college about fifteen years ago, I always had it in my mind that it was for my future family. I may not have had a girlfriend at the time, but gosh darn it, this was for my posterity. I was going to have a library of movies to lend to my children come the day.

Well, now I have 2 boys. The eldest (7) has just entered that stage where he can sit down and watch a movie I choose for him from beginning to end (a steady stream of popcorn helps). We've gone from Disney movies to the movies that I enjoyed as a young boy, the single best experience so far being Back to the Future.

Hell, it was his idea. He saw the poster on the wall when we put it up and demanded to watch it. Did I have to search online for a copy? Did I have to rent it from somewhere? Nope.

I just grabbed it from the shelf and threw it in the player. I have 11 more years of this kid growing up and learning about film, hopefully at my guidance, and my collection will be the very large foundation for that.

[Jackie Scanlon]

I am a collector, but I will ONLY buy films that I like and will watch. So I won't buy a sexy limited edition (Indicator's Hammer and Columbia Noir sets, just as two fairly recent examples off the top of my head - neither are my cup of tea) just because it's a sexy limited edition, whereas I know a lot of people would and wouldn't even take it out of its shrink wrapping (I've lost count of the number of YouTube vids of peoples' collections and a huge chunk of their collection visibly still has the shrinkwrap intact). I don't get that at all, but if others like it then who am I to quibble.

I always have a backlog of films as I buy several blus every month, subscribe to Netflix and still record so much off TV, but I typically watch everything in the order that it arrives with me, albeit with that slight backlog. When I don't have any social events or other responsibilities, I tend to watch two to four films a day depending on length, five or six on a Saturday and Sunday if I'm not doing anything else. I don't really feel I miss out on anything as films are my main hobby, I don't watch (and am not into) any sport and don't watch much broadcast TV, and in the meantime I still spend time with family and friends and other things as well. It helps that my wife enjoys sitting down to watch a film rather than going to the pub, and our daughter is now 11 and more self-sufficient but she'll sit down and watch something every now and again as well (although at the moment she seems to be heading more down the gaming road).

[bergman864]

Originally Posted by dvining

I collect movies I like, so I view it as a curated selection of movie history. I feel confident opening the doors to my collection (literal doors, it's in a closet) to anyone in my family and saying, "You'll find some good stuff in here."

When I first started collected right after college about fifteen years ago, I always had it in my mind that it was for my future family. I may not have had a girlfriend at the time, but gosh darn it, this was for my posterity. I was going to have a library of movies to lend to my children come the day.

Well, now I have 2 boys. The eldest (7) has just entered that stage where he can sit down and watch a movie I choose for him from beginning to end (a steady stream of popcorn helps). We've gone from Disney movies to the movies that I enjoyed as a young boy, the single best experience so far being Back to the Future.

Hell, it was his idea. He saw the poster on the wall when we put it up and demanded to watch it. Did I have to search online for a copy? Did I have to rent it from somewhere? Nope.

I just grabbed it from the shelf and threw it in the player. I have 11 more years of this kid growing up and learning about film, hopefully at my guidance, and my collection will be the very large foundation for that.

I imagine that most people who put posters up of their favorite movies have said movie in their collection. That's my thought.

[Gerby]

My unwatched blu ray pile stands at 4 out of 2449.
I do have over 600 unwatched films on various other formats though along with some tv shows. I don't watch stuff at quite the same frequency that i used to so it will take me a few years to get through them all which doesn't bother me at all.
I've seriously been thinking a lot this year about stopping buying physical media altogether which i will probably do within the next 12 months. This is partly due to space issues but also because i feel quite content with my entire film collection as it stands. (About 10,000)

[deto]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

I spend more time tending to my children nowadays than watching, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ditto. My wife and I have a huge backlog for when our daughter is older and we can watch more non children's movies again.

[joonskeezle]

Originally Posted by Deezer1986

I completely get FOMO. That’s why I usually prioritize the stuff from the boutiques first.

The last couple years have made this mindset a bit more difficult though. Between COVID messing with manufacturing, and the ever-expanding streaming market and general cratering of blu ray sales causing major studios to increasingly abandon the blu ray format entirely, there's much more of a feeling that ANYTHING can become unavailable if we wait even a little too long.

Just in recent months there's been a bit of a collective panic around a number of Universal and Fox titles which appeared to go out of print, or did go out of print, and then were suddenly available again, and then not, and that uncertainty has definitely made FOMO much worse and made it feel much more ridiculous. (And don't get me started on Warner Bros and Fox.)

I mean people were buying Bowfinger for $40-50 on ebay just in the last couple months; now it's everywhere for $10 again.

[zman73]

Count me in as another person here with a young child who is my priority many nights wife and I get in bed and I am out fairly quickly... even on days where I think I am going to marathon a bunch of films, I am usually doing some sort of yardwork. I dont know how some people can watch as many as they do but not knocking them for it, I just have too many other things going on

[Marv Inc.]

I used to watch purchases straight away but the last two years I've had stuff sat unopened on myself for months.

I only just got around to taking the shrink wrap off the Scream Critters Collection and I have about six Indicator titles to watch and six arrow titles. The whole series of Twin Peaks The Return too. Just dont know when i'll get the time.

I keep saying to myself i'll have a lazy day and do nothing but watch movies but I always end up doing some housework or going to the shops or visiting family.

[HD Goofnut]

I always open within a day or two of buying/receiving a title and back it up as soon as possible. It's the best way to avoid any problems in case the disc goes bad in the future.