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a binder with the cover art stored in folders, but it seems like a gigantic waste of money to buy a storage system for outdated standard definition media, when most studios have remastered editions readily available.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.
Yeah if you are not a collector who wants to display their collection it makes no sense to hold on to the physical media. As long as you have digital backups (3-2-1).
i’m moved from video (dvd/blu/4kblu) to vinyl as my financial disaster hobby
will be selling off my large collection of movies early in the new year, including a large criterion collection mostly unopened
Box up the media and store it away if you got space. There’s are prob more worthless stuff in a box somewhere than media. Do whatever let you sleep better at night.
I have and I regret it immensely
I never understood people that say physical media takes too much space. It’s literally a binder or two.
Chuck the boxes, keep the sleeves.
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.
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.
I never got much to begin with so it isn’t really a problem to hold on to most of it.
Years ago. I gave my last Blu-ray’s to a mate about 5+ years ago.
The only optical drive I own is the one in my Series X, and that’s only because there isn’t a digital only version.
Thrown out? I don’t understand. What does that mean?
I got rid of all my books. Never really had dvd/bluray.
Unlikely to get rid of photos as Id have to digitize all the old stuff and physical copies are a pretty good backup…
I just throw out the cases. Buy used, rip, store disk in a collection case.
I purged hundreds of DVDs when I moved, movies and series I was confident I’d never rewatch, or that would be easy to find on Blu-Ray.
I still occasionally buy used DVDs, mainly foreign films and series, and mountain bike or fmx videos.
I need to do the same with my CDs. And make backups of the rare ones in case of disc rot. Vinyl likewise; but those won’t be given away.
I live in a small apartment (40 m², about 430 sqft), and I still like to buy physical media (although that doesn’t mean everything I own has to be on physical media).
For me it’s mostly music (~700 CDs, ~500 LPs), and a handful of DVDs/BluRays. I guess I just like to have that stuff around me. If Amazon/Netflix/Spotify/Deezer/whatever other streaming services there are all shut down tomorrow I don’t even care…
I figure my DVDs and CDs don’t take much room. I have a few Case-Logic binders that hold about 400 discs each. They’re about the size of a medium-sized 3-ring binder.