How Long Have You Been Collecting Physical Media?

[overmang5]

Sometime in the late 80's, can't remember when exactly. I got a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Betamax tape for Christmas one year.

The next tape I ever got was my 6th grade graduation in 1990 also in Beta.

It was then my dad decided to give away the beta player, and buy a VHS player.

I then started adding VHS movies to my Christmas and birthday lists, and taping movies off the TV.

I remember taping Speed, and Casper in the 90s (I kind of liked that movie for some reason) at some point before going to university, and taking those VHSs with me. Watched them a lot then.

[EvilResident]

You could say I’ve been doing it all my life. We had a really big VHS collection growing up (I’m 34) and my mom would let me pick out weird movies at Suncoast all the time. I would always pick obscure horror movies and now here we are.

[bigdaddyhorse]

Early 80's for music, mid-90's for movies (VHS).
Got into laserdisc after dvd came out as they were cheap and often had features or widescreen versions the early dvds did not.

[Geoff D]

Almost 30 years. Started in the very early '90s with VHS and even as a tween I was buying widescreen stuff wherever I could, even though I only had a 14" TV to watch them on. I love these two trailers from the VHS widescreen special editions.

20th Century Fox Widescreen VHS Promo Ad featuring Alien & Die Hard (1991) - YouTube

Widescreen VHS trailer 1991 #1 - YouTube

[necorbin]

Since college, so around 18 years.... First DVD I ever bought was The Neverending Story, and the first Bluray was the original Halloween (1978), when the PS3 came out.

[HonestJohn]

Originally Posted by The Batman Professor

Add two years to that for me. I still have a few of my old super8 boxes and reels on display. If you start counting with full-length features, I got my first Betamax for Christmas 1983.

8mm>Beta>VHS>VHS HI-FI>Laserdisc>DVD>Blu-ray (haven't committed to 4K just yet)

I wish I still had mine, but I've always sold the old to buy the new. I don't even want to think about some of the things I let go. Mine goes like this ....

8mm > CED > Beta > VHS > DVD > Blu-ray

The only one I regret is CED (RCA VideoDisc). . I see you skipped that one, good instincts.

[Gogga1823]

Purchased my first 45 rpm record when I was seven years old, and my first VHS tape in '95 I believe. So 45 years and 24 years respectively.

[Steedeel]

30 years.

[Long Tom]

Started collecting from the first day I got a VCR in 1981. Spent a couple of years recording movies off tv but then moved onto ex rentals aswell as discounted new tapes.

In the UK the proper retail market started in 1986 with The Video Collection but it took several years for Hollywood to catchup.
Appalled at the quality of VHS I jumped ship in the early 90's and spent several years importing Laserdiscs.
Feb 1998 was the day I first played a dvd and it was obvious that LD was going to die so it never got plugged in again. Enjoyed dvd until 2008 when I started on Bluray. Vowed not to replace everything but that seems to have fallen by the wayside and I have more on Blu than I ever had on dvd.

Been collecting UHD for a couple of years but now sticking with vintage movies in 4k because so many UHD releases of movies from the last 20 years are shitty 2k upscales so restricting purchases of UHD is very easy. Even with new movies I take 3D over 4k anyday.

[Member-222782]

My obsession began with going to the movies with my dad beginning around 1981 when I was 7. Those outings were so surreal and impressionistic that they made me what I am today. When we got our first VCR circa 1986, I taped as many movies and TV shows off the air as I could. Even as a child, my world consisted of making myself available to record horror movies at whatever ungodly hour so that I could watch them over and over at my leisure. I watched Phantasm, Thirst and Poltergeist so many times that I knew every line and musical cue coming from a mile away. It was great!

My day joined a mail order club sometime in the late 80's - one of those places that sold like a dozen movies for a penny or something and had amassed a decent collection of films (mainly family friendly stuff), some of which I kept for myself. That was my first personal "collection", including the self-made tapes of TV broadcasts. Soon after I got my first job in 1992, I would go to J&R Music World, The Wiz, Tower and other stores and buy movies by the armloads. I built a respectable VHS library in the ensuing years leading up to the introduction of the DVD format in 1997. Laserdisc was in the back of my mind but they were too expensive and already on their way out by the time I had a good enough job to buy any. I gave away or had to throw away the remainder of my VHS collection by 2002 because by then I was already beginning to accumulate a sizable library and I was living with my sister at the time so I didn't have the luxury of space. When Blu-ray came out in 2006 my DVD collection was into the low 1000's. Out of those, I still own about 600 titles (still sizable) while surging my BD collection to over 3500 and climbing. Those infrequent but thrilling visits to movie grindhouses when I was still a kid changed my life and molded me into what I (still) am today: an avid collector of varied cinema that shows no signs of stopping.

[Bolty]

Originally Posted by Rich65

First VHS: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

First album: KISS Alive II

First Autograph: Walter Koenig, Fall of 1982.

Been collecting since 1977.

Dude, quit stalking me!

First record album: Kiss Rock And Roll Over
First VHS tape: Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan
First autograph: Walter Koenig 1985 Miami

I kid you not.

[CrowKiller]

I didn't really start going balls to the wall until DVD. I just rented a ton of movies on VHS and from a place where it was cheap, so why buy a movie when I could just rent it again for 50 cents? At least my mentally as a kid. I was also too young to have a real job, so buying things was a little harder. I did end up buying a few classics like Dawn of the Dead and Evil Dead on VHS.

[mysticwaterfall]

I started getting anime tapes in the 90s with a few movies here and there but I didnt really get into collecting movies until DVDs around 2000.

[Aclea]

Since the days when unless you were very rich and could afford one of those prototype video recorders the only way to own movies at home was to have your own projector, starting with this:

[josephga]

First album kiss alive 2
First movie Halloween on vhs

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Almost 30 years. Started in the very early '90s with VHS and even as a tween I was buying widescreen stuff wherever I could, even though I only had a 14" TV to watch them on. I love these two trailers from the VHS widescreen special editions.

I remember the first widescreen VHS I bought was Jaws. Having seen it a hundred times on VHS and cable, seeing it for the first time in widescreen was a revelation. I was hooked. Everything after that had to be widescreen.

[jvonl]

Since 1966. Worked weekends in a gas station (remember them? pumped your gas, checked your oil, washed your windshield) when I was 16, then took my money to the local store and bought LP's for $2-3 and singles for a buck. Then 8-tracks, cassettes, VHS (first player was a monster from JVC), cd's, DVD's, blu-ray and now UHD. Over 50 years! Where does the time go...?

[sperezmore]

Since 1975 (44 years)

March 1975 (Audio Cassette)
August 1985 (CD)
October 1998 (DVD)
July 2001 (DVD Audio & SACD)
May 2007 (Blu-ray)
July 2014 (Blu-ray Audio)
April 2019 (UHD 4k Blu-ray)