After watching countless videos of people on youtube showing off their much loved DVD collections I‘ve began to wonder how the average DVD collector thinks. I’ve come across many who strike me as the type who have reached the point of just buying DVDs for the sake of buying DVDs. I think on some level they have become in a way obsessed with quaintly rather than quality. And others I’ve seen seem to have a more patience and researched approach. They will often wait until a price reduction in particular title they want. And they will buy the edition of the best value in terms of packaging, picture/sound quality and special features, rather than a bare bones first edition release; which is the category I like to think I fall under.

So here are my questions to all you collectors out there.
How do you view yourself as a collector?

Do you have a set of personal rules when it comes to purchasing your DVDs?

Buying habits; example, are you patient? Will you buy a new release DVD knowing that a superior edition will be out in the coming months?

Have you changed the way you buy DVDs since you started collecting?

Have you evolved?

As far as myself as a collector, first and foremost I buy what I like.  I don't care if someone is like 'why do you own Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death?' That aside, I am working on lists of great films, and on the Criterion collection, so while I love a good (bad?) B-movie, I'm also something of a film snob.  There are movies that just sound dumb to me and I have no interest. 

Rules for DVDs I can get at my shop:
- If it's something I'm looking for, grab it.
- If it's classic Hollywood, grab it.
- If it looks like it might be good & I haven't seen it in the shop previously, grab it.
- If it looks remotely interesting & hits the cheap section, grab it.
- Upgrade 3 releases to blu per week.

I get DVDs so cheaply where I work that I'll pick up anything that sounds remotely interesting.  I have a lot of rom-coms that I grabbed out of our cheap section for $1.  At that price if it sucks I don't care.

Rule for DVDs I have to pay real money for:
- Buy it only if I'm looking for it.

I suppose one should only consider my "collection building" limited to those I'm willing to pay real money for.  For the most part at this stage those are classic Hollywood, anime, or releases in collections I'm working on - Criterion, Global Lens, etc, or films with favorite cast or crew members. 

It depends on the movie whether or not I'll wait for release.  For some, I'll wait as long as I have to.  LotR on blu, for example.  We have the current release in my shop right now, but since it's the theatrical cut I'm waiting for the release of the extended edition.  On the other hand, I've already picked up Avatar and don't see a reason to bother with picking up the 3D edition when that comes out.  But a lot of films, if I have the single disc edition and a double disc comes into the shop, I automatically trade up.

Yes, I have definitely changed since I started picking up DVDs.  I grab a lot more of them now.    I no longer have cable or broadcast TV, and largely never go to the movie theatre (like Daruma, I hate it, but I make an exception for the IMAX so I've seen 2 movies in the theatre this year - Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure and Hubble), so my collection is everything that is available to me to watch.  I don't intend to stay at this job forever, so I'm taking advantage of my discount while I've got it. 

If I get another job (such as the one I applied for yesterday, *crosses fingers*) I will be limiting my purchasing to 1 wishlist item per week.

My buying habits have definitely changed. Back when I started collecting DVDs, I used to pre-order everything so I'd have it on or before the day of release. I rarely stopped to consider the cost. If I wanted it, it would be mine as soon as possible. In retrospect this was not a good approach. I spent a lot of money on poor films, bad transfers and overpriced special editions. Only to buy them again when the next remastered deluxe edition arrived.

Now I pre-order almost nothing unless I've read a couple of good reviews first. I'm much more nitpicking about the transfers. Even on blu-ray they are often not good enough. I also tend to wait much longer before I buy the films that are not must-haves. They can easily sit a year or more on my wish list until the price is right. And of course, these days I already have most of the films I really want which makes my collecting habits much more relaxed.

Mental-ity?

*bangs head against the wall while cuddling a DVD*


I like analogueman's answer to the first question. I am only considered a collector (by others) because I have a number of DVD's which exceeds what your casual owner possesses. I'm not a collector; I simply own 200+ DVD's. If I were a handyman and owned 200+ tools to cover all situations that I might run into, I doubt that anyone who looks at my "collection" of tools for the first time would call me "a collector of tools." I'd never really thought about this before, but I would probably, more correctly, call myself a "DVD hobbyist."

As an extension of the first answer, I have always only bought what I know I will watch over and over again or hope that I will enjoy enough to watch over and over again. I have no interest in buying something "just because it's there" no matter the price. If I had the chance to buy 100 DVD's for $50 not knowing anything about their content, then my perspective is that I would be "wasting $50 and taking up space," not "gaining 100 DVD's."

Even if a movie is one that I do really want, I still feel no need to pre-order or buy it right away. It's not going anywhere; I don't have to have it right now. I don't have to have it ever. I would like to have it, but if I don't get it, I'll live without obsessing. For those reasons, I have to say I am middle of the road when it comes to prices of my buying. By waiting, the price will drop (but I'm not waiting so that the price will drop). However, I do want the DVD that has the most features which fit my interest. Only if I am gaining something substantial will I double-dip (although that can range in several ways, often because I was given a basic version as a gift and simply have not gotten rid of it even though the feature-filled 2-disc version was released at the same time and decide severla months later to buy that version.)

So, nothing has changed for me over time because I was neither obsessed nor timid about my purchasing. Even my Profiler wishlist would have a bare minimal number if not for the fact that I use that tab for another purpose else as well.

In the past 12 months or so I've refused to buy a number of DVDs based only on poor cover art.
Distributors keep re-releasing titles and changing the cover art and gets worse each time. Or they keep the original cover art but put a ridiculous border around with some meaningless title like "Must own edition" or "Director's choice". It makes the DVD look very cheap.