# Why collect DVDs?



## Violanthe

The current trend seems to be collecting DVDs. Do you buy them? If so, why? Do you get them just to have a large collection? Do you own just your favorites in film and tv that you would watch again? What have DVDs added to the film industry? Are they an improvement over VHS, or just another marketing ploy?


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## Corvis

DVDs are incredible! Whoever created them is a genius and they're loads better than VHS. I collect loads (I'm probably up to 100 by now) because I just love movies (all kinds), I wouldn't mind having a big collection, and I have them if other people need them to watch as well.


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## Hammersmith

I buy DVDs used from Amazon, and it's usually either the same price or cheaper as renting. Thus, if there's a movie I want to see, buying it can often be the most financially viable, with the added bonus that I can cater to the packrat side of myself. I'm also a sucker for bonus footage and limited editions.


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## Corvis

Hammersmith said:


> I'm also a sucker for bonus footage and limited editions.


 
I'm the same Hammersmith.


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## HLGStrider

I grew up without TV, not for religious reasons or educational reasons or anything like that. I simply live in a valley where you can't get regular signals and with parents who could never afford satalite. Therefore, growing up we amassed a large collection of movies (at the time VHS) which we still have. Our grandparents bought us a DVD player last year, and we have been buying more DVD's than VHS. 

Plus we also do netflicks . . . 

Anyway, DVD's to me have a few technical advantages, but for me it is simply an issue that they are phasing out VHS the way CD's phased out cassettes. Sure, you can still buy cassettes, but with CD players more common and everything available on CD, why bother?


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## Lindir

DVDs are great, so much better than VHS (which I also used to buy but are now replacing with DVD instead). The point in actually owning films is the same as collecting books; you probably want to see the films more than once.
I buy some films that I have already seen and some that I think I might enjoy, it seldom fails. And if you buy a film that isn't very good, there is a second-hand market for them. 
A large collection of DVDs give me an enormous sense of well being.


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## Halasían

Netflix is a good deal as I've found myself watching LOTS of movies I get through them.

As for DVDs.. I buy ones of movies I like watching again. They are usually classics like Kelly's Heroes or The Big Sleep...


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## Violanthe

I'm not a big movie fan, so I love that tv shows are getting equal treatment now from DVDs. I love to check out new TV shows at my leisure by renting or borrowing them on DVD, rather than scheduling my life around the tube


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## Barliman Butterbur

Violanthe said:


> The current trend seems to be collecting DVDs. Do you buy them? If so, why? Do you get them just to have a large collection? Do you own just your favorites in film and tv that you would watch again? What have DVDs added to the film industry? Are they an improvement over VHS, or just another marketing ploy?[/SIZE][/FONT]



Years ago I had a HUGE collection of LP records, and spent hours typing up 3x5 cards in a gigantic cross-index file — would that I had had a computer for that chore then! But that was back in the late 50s/early 60s.

Much later CDs came to the fore, supplanting vinyl recordings, and by that time my hearing had deterioriated to the point where listening to classical music by the hour just wasn't fun any more. Besides, I had many other things which demanded my time and attention. So I let my LP collection gather dust and sit around letting the vinyl microbes eat them up until the resultant snap-crackle-pop made them all but unlistenable. I refused to even consider trying to duplicate the collection in CD or buy a CD player.

Then came videotapes, and I started collecting again, and this time I had a computer and a database to keep track of everything! But a funny thing happened — DVDs! It was at that point that I gave up on serious collecting — it's just too damned expensive. We're giving away hundreds of videotapes to the local library because the quality at best — compared to hi-def TV — is just ridiculous.

Now we're at the point where HDTV is supplanting standard-broadacast TV, and at some point in the future hi-def DVDs will supplant standard DVDs — it's just a matter of time. And I have decided, with companies around such as NetFlix, Blockbuster, etc., simply to rent them (although we'll always buy those special ones we consider "keepers"). We already have almost $2,000 worth of DVD movies, and rarely watch most of them. So my plans are to get a hi-def DVD player, once the industry settles down to a world standard format, and then rent for the most part.

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It's been a long time since I posted anything about DVDs and hi-def TV because there wasn’t much movement. But now comes an article from BusinessWeek which may be of interest:

HIGH-TECH TV
By David H. Holtzman

*The DVD War Against Consumers*
Makers of new DVD players are going too far in copyright protection efforts, but buyers needn't take it lying down

Having grown tired of one war, we're on the eve of another, complete with alliances, secret codes, and laser beams. No, not Iran -- it's the fight over the next generation of DVD devices. The real battle isn't between Sony (SNE ) and Microsoft (MSFT ) and their chosen formats, it's between the manufacturers and us -- the consumers, the ones who ultimately pay for it all. And the battle is over Digital Rights Management (DRM), because in addition to increased storage, these new disks are packed full of copy-protection functions, some of which impair our ability to use the content we pay for, the way we like and are legally entitled to. 

Sony is championing a standard called Blu-ray, Microsoft is pushing HD-DVD. Both formats have plenty of corporate backers. The upcoming PlayStation 3 will support Blu-ray, the Xbox 360 will get an add-on drive that uses HD-DVD. 

Both standards incorporate sophisticated DRM technology. The current crop of DVDs uses a copy protection scheme that encrypts the disk, but that scheme was broken several years ago and the hack was widely incorporated in innumerable freeware DVD decryption programs. The movie studios have vowed not to let that happen to them again. 

Full article here

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Barley


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## Varokhâr

I am quite happy thus far with DVDs. They wear out less than VHS do, and the movies I like, I watch back to back to back. I've worn out many VHS tapes in such fashion. Now, the player wears out before the media does.


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## Barliman Butterbur

Just bought a DVD of SUPERSIZE ME. If any of you out there are addicted to McDonald's fast food — God help you. You are committing a slow, horrible suicide. I kid you not. 

Barley


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## Uminya

All the way from the dawn of personally-owned music on phonograms and early moving-camera film reels, copying media has been difficult and time consuming. Then came the cassette and VHS tape. At the cost of quality, we were delivered an easily duplicated medium.

Then we entered the digital age of CD's and DVD's, and came the CD and DVD burners. Corporations hit back with encryption and gems such as "rootkit", to try and stop people from taking media and altering or copying it.

The same technology that these corporations have deployed, however, is its own noose, and we are the hangmen. They can make a completely secure media that only plays on a device that (supposedly) cannot be used to copy it (which means it cannot be interfaced with computers), but EVEN then: A) nobody would buy it and B) someone would make a way to copy it.

Blu-ray, HD-DVD, the name doesn't matter. Heck, even I am fully capable of stripping off the protective encoding of (legally) downloaded music with absolutely no loss of quality. And I am using crude methods. There's nothing to stop a professional coder/decoder from building a program that will decrypt just about anything out there one way or another. In the end, the corporations are going to lose, just because consumers have easy access to tools that defeat corporate measures. People like their freedom, and as long as that stays true, people will continue to beat corporations while STILL remaining within their legal rights.

EDIT: Oh, and I only buy those DVD's that I've watched and enjoy. I have quite a collection of Clint Eastwood Westerns, war movies, Harrison Ford action movies, and assorted cultish classics


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## Barliman Butterbur

Ciryaher said:


> ...even I am fully capable of stripping off the protective encoding of (legally) downloaded music with absolutely no loss of quality. And I am using crude methods.



COOL IT! The NSA...

Barley


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## Violanthe

I just skip the encodings altogether and just borrow CDs from friends or the library to download music. Until CDs are obsolete, there's no way that companies can prohibit copying and still be viable in the market. No one will want to buy a CD anymore if they can't put the songs on their Ipod.


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## Halasían

_(Thirteen years later...)_

I do have quite a collection of DVDs and some Blu-Ray. My wife asks me why I keep them as I don't usually find time to watchmost of them. Still, they stay, like my CD collection. I did weed through the CDs when we recently moved and donated them to a used media store.

As for tech... DVD was supplanted by Blu-Ray, which was enhanced by 4K, and now there is 8K. Granted the quality is quite good when paired to a UHD TV, but the tech is always updating. I had to replace my 1st HDTV because of the broadcast channels tech changed and the tuner would not receive the new stations. That and it was a Plasma Watt-Hog that weighed 60kg. I now have a 55" Samsung Series 9 curved-screen which so far has been forward compatible with 8K (not that I have any). That said, I still have my old VHS VCR for old home movies that I am working on digitizing onto DVD.

And I've digressed this old topic of Vio's into a tech talk. My 2019 answer is... yes, I still do collect discs, be they CD, DVD, Blu Ray, etc. As a side... when I buy music on Bandcamp I always pay for the download and the CD. I like having something physical in my hands... I think that is what this topic is about.


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## Lych92

My family and I used to buy and keep a lot of DVDs back in the 2000s, and it was kind of a family hobby. After my family shifted to a new house a few years ago we throw away or gave a lot of our DVDs to other people, and only kept 2 boxes of our favourite films - LOTR theatrical cut and director's cut included. We've stopped buying new ones too as our TV broke before we moved houses and have never bought a new TV since. We didn't buy a new DVD player either... So if we really want to watch any of our DVD films we'll have to play it on our computers or laptops 😆


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## Halasían

Yeah I hear that. It is why I keep both my LG DVD player I got in 2009, and my Oppo Blu-Ray player in 2012. They are hacked to play in 'Test' mode and I haven't found a disc either won't play. As for old tech, I still have a VHS VCR. I have a thing to digitize any tapes (old home movies made with an 1980's vintage camcorder my mom bought. My son used that thing until it died in 2004). And I see I mentioned 'Netflix' in my original post. They were a DVD mail rental business back then. They sure made the right corporate decision to embrace streaming!


I wonder what *Violanthe* is up to these days. She was so full of life and doing interviews and surveys for her 'Alternate Reality Writer's Zone' website that I stumbled upon in 2001. She seemed to have abandoned that site in 2012 and it disappeared fron the web a couple years later when the domain ran out. She was on almost all the Tolkien sites, and a few others back through the first decade of this century. She would be into her 40's these days. Miss you Vio!


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## Olorgando

When it comes down to it, I don't anymore. Probably since 2015, when "Battle of Five Armies" came out - and "Hotel Transylvania 2". Problem is, what good is Blu-ray or 4K or 8K if the content stinks? OK, that's a bit harsh, perhaps. But it's similar with music. Last I bought there was the 2013 Crossroads Guitar Festival organized by Eric Clapton at Madison Square Garden, and the fifth in total. It would have to be some really awesome documentary to get me to buy anything new. Current content simply elicits a bored shrug from me.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner

And not just forgotten threads -- forgotten tech! 

I collect DVDs because:

A) I can't afford satellite or cable (or streaming)

B) Limited to my phone, as I am, youtube movie-watching is an eye-croggling exercise (though I did watch a couple of Mr, Moto movies that way recently, along with some old serials -- but I have to allow myself recovery time afterwards, if I want to, read a book, say).

C) I get all mine from yard sales, flea markets, and the like -- cheap! And with so many people dumping theirs, getting cheaper. For example, my local hospice store used to sell them for $3. They dropped them to $1, and have been so inundated that they recently went to 5 for a dollar. In fact, this very morning, I picked up a nice 5-disc set of W.C Fields classics for 3 bucks at a yard sale (he gloated shamelessly. Oh, hey -- I got Season 1 of "Shamelesss" there too!  ).

I think the last one I bought retail was when Wallyworld lowered the price of "Have Gun, Will Travel" sets from 60 to twelve dollars.

I picked up the EE's of LOTR for a buck apiece, BTW, and can honestly say they were worth every penny.


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## Halasían

I have a dust-covered set of EE LotR on the shelf. I paid some $$ to get the 3 season set of China Beach as they licensed the music soundtrack rights so it cost a bit. Going to buy the UK Fabulous Films edition of Tour of Duty because of the same reason. The other two releases of this series has a generic soundtrack and it just isn't the same. 

Oh yes, I browse the bargain bins at JB-HiFi on occasion and find gems among the chaff. I should hit up yard sales...


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## Squint-eyed Southerner

Library sales too. They usually have tons.


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## Erestor Arcamen

I go to a monster movie convention every year a usually load up on old B sci-fi and monster movies that I'll watch once or twice then forget about 😋. Probably not happening this year so I'll just rewatch some of the ones I have.

Here's one I got a few years ago:


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## Ealdwyn

There's a big advvantage of DVDs over digital copies: if you buy a digital downlosd of a movie - or a digitial download of music, games, books or anything else - you never actually own it. All you're doing is buying a licence to play that movie, which comes with limited rights. 

If you have a (legitimate) physical copy of a DVD, CD, game or book, then you own it and you can buy/sell/give it away it without permission from the copyright owner.


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## Halasían

Ealdwyn said:


> There's a big advvantage of DVDs over digital copies: if you buy a digital downlosd of a movie - or a digitial download of music, games, books or anything else - you never actually own it. All you're doing is buying a licence to play that movie, which comes with limited rights.
> 
> If you have a (legitimate) physical copy of a DVD, CD, game or book, then you own it and you can buy/sell/give it away it without permission from the copyright owner.


*Exactly! *It's like Microsoft now only sells you a subscription to Windows 365 which has to be renewed every year. Gone are the Windows 7 software CDs. That said, the streaming services are now so many one would go broke subscribing to them all.


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## Olorgando

Halasían said:


> *Exactly! *It's like Microsoft now only sells you a subscription to Windows 365 which has to be renewed every year. Gone are the Windows 7 software CDs.


Seems Microsoft offers different packages on different markets.
I definitely still have a Windows 10 OS, and an Office 2019 package with Excel 2019, PowerPoint 2019, and Word 2019.
No "365" stuff anywhere.


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## Halasían

Ealdwyn said:


> There's a big advvantage of DVDs over digital copies: if you buy a digital downlosd of a movie - or a digitial download of music, games, books or anything else - you never actually own it. All you're doing is buying a licence to play that movie, which comes with limited rights.
> 
> If you have a (legitimate) physical copy of a DVD, CD, game or book, then you own it and you can buy/sell/give it away it without permission from the copyright owner.


Exactly!


Olorgando said:


> Seems Microsoft offers different packages on different markets.
> I definitely still have a Windows 10 OS, and an Office 2019 package with Excel 2019, PowerPoint 2019, and Word 2019.
> No "365" stuff anywhere.


Did you get an actual disk in case you need to reload Windows?


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## Olorgando

Halasían said:


> Did you get an actual disk in case you need to reload Windows?


No, I don't believe there was a DVD available for the update from Win7 to Win10. Just yesterday, I had an update for "Windows 10 version 1909". and apparently there is a bigger ("functional") update to W10 version 2004 in the offing.
So no disk, no, but also not Win365 or Office365.


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## Halasían

It is Windows 10. I have the Office 365 which I pay a yearly.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner

Erestor Arcamen said:


> I go to a monster movie convention every year a usually load up on old B sci-fi and monster movies that I'll watch once or twice then forget about 😋. Probably not happening this year so I'll just rewatch some of the ones I have.
> 
> Here's one I got a few years ago:


RONDO HATTON!!


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## Erestor Arcamen

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> RONDO HATTON!!


 Yup! He was awesome! He's also excellent in The Brute Man and House of Horrors!


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## Erestor Arcamen

Tor Johnson is another actor that I like a lot too


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## Olorgando

Halasían said:


> It is Windows 10. I have the Office 365 which I pay a yearly.


Just checked the homepage of "my" computer store.
They have three Office options:
Home & Student (mine) - unlimited license
Home & Business - unlimited license
365 Home - 1 year license
I can give you the link to their homepage - but I doubt they ship to 'Straya.


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## Halasían

Sames.

So I decided to reach into my DVD collection and pull out something to watch, and I came up with season 1 of Sons of Anarchy. There are seven seasons of which I aquired the first three. Guess I'll be busy for a few weeks.

And on the 'collecting' front, I ordered the UK Fabulous Films edition of the Tour of Duty box set. Original soundtrack! Cost a bit but I will be able to finally retire the burned DVDs of the VHS tapes that recorded the original briadcast in 1987-90.


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## Halasían

Halasían said:


> Sames.
> 
> So I decided to reach into my DVD collection and pull out something to watch, and I came up with season 1 of Sons of Anarchy. There are seven seasons of which I aquired the first three. Guess I'll be busy for a few weeks.
> 
> And on the 'collecting' front, I ordered the UK Fabulous Films edition of the Tour of Duty box set. Original soundtrack! Cost a bit but I will be able to finally retire the burned DVDs of the VHS tapes that recorded the original briadcast in 1987-90.



So yesterday Amazon UK sent me an email asking me to rate the Tour of Duty DVDs I recently got. I gave it 3 of 5 stars. It has the original soundtrack but the video quality is about the same as my burned DVD copy from VHS tape. Yes it is how it was broadcast in 1987-90 in the U.S. 4:3 525 scanline NTSC standard, but somehow I was hoping it would of had some video enhanced upscaling like its competing Vietnam series i=of the day 'China Beach'. It is a bit of an eye-strain to watch on an HDTV and I have decided to use my computer with headphones to watch instead. The smaller screen makes the flaws of the original recording bearable. It is good to have the right music embedded in the episodes though.


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