How long does it take you to decide what to watch?

[THS]

WIth the size of my collection, it's getting quite ridiculous to pick efficiently. I keep a list in my phone of all the things I've been thinking about watching lately (In order of runtime), so that I have a point of reference, and know what will fit my viewing window. When I go into the movie room, I pull everything on the list out a couple inches, so that they stand out. I then I do a quick sweep to see if my mood demands something not listed, or something I've spontaneously become interested in, and then I use this limited selection to choose my title.

When my Wife is watching, and therefor helping choose, we take turns pushing one thing in at a time, until we are down to two or three titles, then we either discuss, or go down to two, and flip a coin.

It's worked out pretty well so far.

[Chaotic]

A long time. I can almost never choose what to watch when i browse my collection. Usually its an urge to rewatch something that i helps me.

[dallywhitty]

[Chaotic]

Originally Posted by thornhill

Sometimes it takes so long I end up not watching anything. I think I have way too many choices.

Happens to me all the time. I need an urge to rewatch something to make it easier.

[DanTheMan]

Lately, I’ve been letting random generators decide my movie watching (home viewing anyway).

https://www.miniwebtool.com/random-name-picker/

It’s really helpful because I’m always finding myself staring at my neglected/unopened titles in my collection, and by typing around 5-10 movies, I let fate pick my next adventure.

[Canada]

I usually have a movie in mind before I even choose.

[mcvitie]

I spend ages too. Is there a way of a random movie selector tool in 'mycollection'

[bigdaddyhorse]

I'm still picking out Sunday night's flick.

Seriously, having a few things from the library helps, as I have to watch those since they need to be returned. On slow library weeks, the above joke/statement has been true more than once.

[gambit64]

It takes forever every time, but the one we pick out always ends up as a good choice!

[infiniteCR]

After all the time it can take to carefully pick a movie for an evening, I can easily rip open an amazon goody and change my mind on the spot

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by DanTheMan

Lately, I’ve been letting random generators decide my movie watching (home viewing anyway).

https://www.miniwebtool.com/random-name-picker/

It’s really helpful because I’m always finding myself staring at my neglected/unopened titles in my collection, and by typing around 5-10 movies, I let fate pick my next adventure.

I watch 3-4 movies at random a month myself. All my discs are stored for playback in Sony 400-disc Blu-ray changers and cataloged in DVD Profiler. Within DVD Profiler I create profiles for each disc. Each of those profiles are assigned a Collection ID which corresponds with the changer and slot where the given disc resides. The changer and slot number is also called out within each profile. With my remote control sytem I created an activity where I can enter the Collection ID or changer and slot number to play a given disc. Just for fun I added the ability to select a disc at random across the titles I haven't watched yet or across my entire collection. As the disc is selected and starts to play it can be fun seeing how long it takes to recognize what's been selected.

[gkolb]

My stop-watch broke in 1974, so I dunno

I just start pitching movie titles at my wife and by the fifth or sixth one she gives in.

[AmishParadise]

Somtimes I just pick something from the "What are you watching tonight?" thread. In fact, one of the posts today inspired my movie selection for this evening.

[PenguinInfinity]

I figured out a new way to randomly choose titles by cover. First I saved all of the cover pictures using my printer-friendly Blu-ray and DVD collections (I programmatically obtained the larger cover pictures). Then I simply drag and drop them into VLC media player and turn on randomize. I usually skip past quite a few titles before I end up on something I want to watch, but it rarely takes more than a minute.

[ItsLikeButter]

Way too long. I work a job that requires a ton of OT. Unfortenetly, I barely have time to keep up with my incoming releases. I’ve slowed down a lot due due to getting married next year and the lifelong dream of owning a house looming. I’m sure I will get to majority of the titles in my library, but patience is virtue.

[Axl Rose]

I start on Monday and usually have decided by Sunday night.

[thornhill]

Originally Posted by critterdvd

This started happening to me too much and I'd end up something stupid reality show on demand. Something I've been doing, which seems to be working, is that whenever I get an itch to watch a certain movie I'll put it on a watchlist (which I will only let get to 10 movies max) and when it comes time to pick a movie, I just look at the watch list and pretend those are my only choices.

Originally Posted by donzo29

Happens to me half the time. My wife will go to bed early and I think, hey, I have a couple of hours, I'll watch something she doesn't like. After 30 minutes of trying to decide what to watch it is too late to start a movie and I just watch a show or play a game.

You guys feel my pain! I watch whatever’s on TV many times or get sucked into playing a video game, then I really don’t get around to watching any movies for a while. Actually Critterdvd, I’ve been doing the same as you, and it really does help. I make little piles of movies I have recently bought, or ones I’ve just been wanting to watch, and I can only pick from there until I get through the stack. I honestly just don’t have enough free time these days which leads to having this problem.

[thornhill]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Happens to me all the time. I need an urge to rewatch something to make it easier.

Man, I feel so much better about this now that I see others have the same problem.

[pi2loc]

This is a great question. The other day I was staring at my collection for about 30 minutes and when I decided what to watch I felt like giving up and go to sleep which, I have to say, doesn't particularly showcase my habits.

I think, though, that the dilemma comes from having to choose between the movies you've liked and enjoyed. It's a competition within your own collection, if you will. Sometimes I want to rewatch, say, Kramer vs Kramer, but when I'm looking for it, I find 12 Angry Men and I'm already doubting between what I wanted to watch and what I just realized I could watch. Sometimes I speak to myself and say "oh damn, this is a good movie / yep, this is a good movie too / it's been a while since I saw this one, though" and so on.

I have found that it's best for me to choose a movie a day before watching it and put it on my coffee table. That way I avoid looking at my collection because I always get lost there.

[drb124]

I have accumulated a massive collection. Pretty much everything I have up to mid 2015 is alphabetized/organized on my shelves. Almost everything from then to now is alphabetized and kept in boxes, though there are some exceptions. So I can't necessarily physically look at my entire collection, but I do use the site here to browse. Usually, I either want to watch something with a certain actor or genre, but sometimes I want something specific like a John Wick style revenge movie. Sometimes it takes me a while to settle on something to watch and other times, I know what I want to watch and it just takes me a while to put my hands on the actual disc. One day, I will get more organized.