apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

hmm... i am adverse to this type of organization simply because I am a visual person. My mind is cluttered remembering so much other things that when I want to relax and see a movie I want to see the graphics of the title/dvd to make the selection easy.

for example: seeing the vintage typewriter font of the film "Capote" or my special edition 7 DVD.

Getting rid of all those perfectly good cases and replacing them with more plastic cases, seems sort of wasteful.

Paper sleeves would probably be better, though that doesn't solve the problem of the old cases.

Don't DVDs fit in the same binders CDs do?

what do you do with all the empty cases? Now you have to find spots for double the amount of dvd storage. I'm also too much in love with my door DVD storage system from the container store to get rid of it just yet.

"Don't DVDs fit in the same binders CDs do?"

and video games discs also!

Agree with JefferyK and funstraw. I've put all my DVD's into paper sleeves and sent everything else to recycling. That is about as green as you're going to get, outside of tossing DVDs into the drawer.

Ok...on another note:

"Serenity?" seriously???

wow, that's organized!

i don't have so many dvds/vhs anymore. a few months ago i put a huge box together of old unwatchable vhs tapes and the more "once (or twice...thrice?) is enough" dvds - and i just put it downstairs for my neighbors. i was going to sell them on half.com or something, but that's just too much work. ultimately, i always end up giving it away.

my mom has such a huge collection that i've kinda learned not to get too bogged down by dvds - especially with the awesome advent of netflix-esque options.

we do still have at least 30 dvds, but surprisingly they don't take up much space.

your dvd organization is a lot like what my cd collection SHOULD be - and yeah, i got rid of the cases a LONG time ago - except special ones, or ones that were signed (wee!).

"Ok...on another note:

"Serenity?" seriously???"

Um, yeah, I ditto that!!! I hated that movie somethin' fierce! And I'm a dedicated fantasy/sci-fi fan. So... yeah.

Just a thought...if you are planning on keeping any of the above mentioned to sell in the future or hope they turn into "valuable collectables" for your great grandchildren, you will need to have them in the original packaging. Remember those scenes on Antiques Roadshow where the appraiser shakes his or her head and says "if only you had the original packaging."

aww, there are some serenity/firefly fans out there... including me :)

I keep my dvds, and xbox/wii games in cd wallets. Much more streamlined and they easily fit in a covered basket next to the couch. However, my dvd collection isn't nearly as big as that one!

Oh, and we reduce the waste of unused cases by not buying dvds and burning them instead. Mwahahahaha

I'm just here to represent for Serenity. Good movie, GREAT series (Firefly).

I never had many DVDs to begin with (maybe 25?), but I sold all but the 2 or 3 I love on half.com, and if feel like I need to watch any of the ones I got rid of, I move it to the top of my Netflix queue.

Netflix has eliminated my need to buy DVDs altogether. I'm not a huge movie buff, though.

Yeah, Serenity and Firefly are both very good!

i also wonder what you do with the original packaging.

while i think it's a nice idea, i like to look at the packages as it's easier for me to decide on what i want to watch.

but i'm kind of in a similar situation, my DVD collection is at least 150-200 and my entertainment center is overflowing.

oh how i wish my boyfriend would do this
but he just looooves having the boxes. at the used dvd store they sell out of box dvds for $3 and he wont touch 'em
luckily, most of his dvds are hidden behind tempered glass right now, but i know he wouldnt go for this.

he has awful taste in movies too haha

AT Readers For Serenity/Firefly, represent! [pushing nerd glasses up]

Count me in for the Serenity/Firefly fan club! Though the series was better than the movie.

Re DVDs -- I am threatening to move my "must keep" DVDs into a DVD binder. The only thing that's stopped me so far is considering if I really want to keep them or not.

I have a fabulous hutch where I keep my media. It's out of sight and out of mind. : )

"They are now free of their superfalous packaging"

superfalous??

^^ haha.

Say it out loud now..."superfalous."

*giggle*

"Ok...on another note:

"Serenity?" seriously???"

Um, yeah, I ditto that!!! I hated that movie somethin' fierce! And I'm a dedicated fantasy/sci-fi fan. So... yeah."

If you watched the TV show there is no way you could hate that movie. Firefly/Serenity Fan Club add me in.

Just joining in on the Firefly/Serenity love here :o)

And I'll be watching the last four episodes of Battlestar Galactica saved on my Tivo this weekend.

Yes, I am a supernerd and proud of it.

See, that's the thing. There is absolutely nothing worth watching on TV anymore. (I refuse to watch BSG out of protest. Starbuck is Dirk Benedict, not a girl.) You couldn't pay me to watch reality TV or a talk show. Well, I'd watch Divine Design if I still had cable.

Instead I'm collecting all the SF series that make me happy so when I'm in a mood for mediation I can just pop in a DVD.

Do I keep my beloved complete Babylon 5? Or do I let go so I can roam around the world without a lot of baggage? ARGH.

my problem like a few mentioned above is that we like the boxes, dont ask me why... it just seems wrong (not to mention wasteful) to get rid of them. I'm really in dire need for someone to invent a place for lots and lots of dvds to be stored... and it needs to have room for all the special edition or series cases that are thicker than the standard case. we have way too many dvds...

I already posted this at Unplggd, but I'll add it again here as many people seem as reluctant to part with the packaging as I and this method keeps everything but the plastic box itself (which is the biggest waste of space).

I used binders, CD pockets and sheet protectors. I didn't have to toss anything away except the bulky cases (I still have the inserts, booklets, etc.).

http://tinyurl.com/5sqdf5

The binders can be put anywhere you keep office supplies, books, or magazines since they are the same size as an A4 page. It only cost $4 per binder so it's economical.

I find it amazing that people are bashing Serenity while Cheaper by the Dozen escapes comment.

Also: put me in the "keep the boxes" group.

joining the Firefly/Serenity love here

I love my DVDs in their original boxes, displayed for all of my friends to browse or make fun of. :) And I have over 600 of them! I get compliments on my display units all the time (Ikea shelves and lamps).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/allabouteve/845474811/

Plus, I sometimes purge my collection and the DVDs I want to get rid of often have to be in the original box for me to be able to sell them second hand.

I want to join the Firefly/Serenity club as well not to mention The Princess Bride club (favorite movie of all time). I wish I could do this but I have a feeling my husband who complains about me alphabetizing the movies (he prefers categories) would be on border. Then again I am always looking for an excuse to bring out the label makers.

Sci-fi nerds unite!

Update from Sarahrae:
I thought I would let everyone know what we ended up doing with our DVD cases that were empty (the original packaging).

Anything Disney, we kept in the boxes, as well as anything with extra special packaging. I am sure these too will eventually go the way of the buffalo, but as for now we are still hanging onto them.
As for everything else, we haven't been worried about keeping them in their original casing since the technology has already started to slip away with the advent of digital files, storage and players.

The rest of the empty cases have been listed on Craigslist (in the free section) in batches of 50, and each time they have been picked up within the hour by people who want them for their burned dvds.
We have opted to not do sleeves of any kind as the motion of sliding a dvd in and out over time does wear on the dvd surface. Having been avid music collectors as well and having kept our cds in booklets, we ended up with many of them being scratched.
Plus, using a jewel case has enabled us to relocate 1 dvd in the collection alphabetically without having to remove every dvd in the book to scoot it down one space to make room for the new addition.

~Sarahrae

I've been searching the internet but I still cannot find it, maybe another reader will know...

They have DVD sleeves available that are the same height and width as the cases but are very thin, even thinner then the slimcase. The sleeves can hold up to two DVDs/Cds as well as ALL of the original artwork. The cover will have a slightly stronger crease along one of the original folds but it's minimal and almost reversible. Anyways.. I wish I could remember the name. I do remember they were not terribly cheap (ultimately the reason I opted for a binder instead). More of an option for someone desperate for space but unwilling to part with the artwork.

i'll bet a jewel case is about half to two thirds smaller than a dvd cover...but honestly, that's wasteful, and costly depending on how many dvds you have. i LIKE the cases, the artworks, etc.

if you want to contribute to landfills, waste hours of your time, and buying 15 cases of jewel cases, go right ahead. not me.

I do like the arrangement here! Currently the husband and I have a large collection of DVDs that we store in a big CD binder. It kind of is a pain in the butt when we add a new DVD to the collection, because we do organize alphabetically (so I let the mister deal with the shuffling so I don't have to). I have to show him this because this would be so much easier and more efficient! Thanks Sarah Rae!

I have roughly 800 DVDs and converted them all to plastic disc sleeves. I store them in one of those sterotypical silver metal boxes that in groups of three or four don't actually look too bad. I studied film but don't really care much for DVD extras, booklets, cases, inserts, etc., so I didn't find it too hard to dispose of everything else that came with the movie. The DVD boxes went to a community free box. It's wasteful to throw out all those boxes, but it's either I'm wasting plastic products or I'm wasting space (my collection grew to take up an entire wall until I decided to chuck the boxes).

indiasoup: DVDs and DVD cases don't last forever; one way or another, they will end up in landfills. You were contributing to pollution the moment you decide to buy a DVD, period.

My friend who lived in a NYC studio moved his 4500 DVDs to CD cases, but get this: he scanned all the printed material into his computer, reduced it to the appropriate size, printed it out (in color), and stored them in many, many drawers. He gave me some of the DVD cases, which I used when I burned compilations of photos of parties, etc. for friends and family.

It took him about a year to do the switch. I'm not sure if movie nerd is an adequate term for him.

mmm Serenity good...people who didn't help make it a hit...bad :p

Yay Serenity!!!! :D

Serenity and Firefly are proudly in my nicely organized DVD binders.

Love Serenity, and for me, DVDs like books are not clutter, I like the way they look.

When looking at CD storage options, I soon discovered that most solutions were actually in the same cost range as a 200 disc player. In the end, we just took the disks out of the jewel cases, slipped them into their brochure (or sleeves for discs with one-sheet cover art). We put them in matched cardboard boxes from IKEA which fit on a shelf in our entertainment unit. We have a dish on the mantel to hold active discs.

You can also buy what is called a "DJ suitcase" here.
This one http://www.bigdennis.com/koffer-1000-cdsdvds-aluminium-p-10969.html?language=nl holds 1000 disks.
( I know the site is in Dutch or German, but just to get the idea - they might have them in the US as well?)
I've got a 500 one for my movies/TV series, and a 150 one for my audiobooks. Think it saves more space, and keeps my drawers free for other stuff ;)

I have a DVD disc storage system that my grandma bought me years ago. I thought it was the dorkiest thing then, but I actually quite like it now. You put all the discs in this cylinder, slide a button up and down to the number of the disc you want and it picks it up for you. You can keep all the DVD booklet artwork in a book they give you so you know which movie is where and get rid of the cases (I recycled mine). My husband's movies from before we were married are in binders. We only keep the boxes to TV series and special edition movies that we both love.

Now if only I could get him to get rid of all his CD jewel cases. I hate those frigging things.

Get rid of your cases:

http://www.discgear.com/

Yeah, that's what I have! I like it.

Jick:

"They have DVD sleeves available that are the same height and width as the cases but are very thin, even thinner then the slimcase."

You can find these type of clear DVD cases at online stores like these:

http://www.meritline.com/9mm-frosty-clear-dual-pp-dvd-case.html

I've wanted/considered doing this with my dvd collection but I think I'm with everyone else thinking its more wasteful to get rid of all those cases and i'm a visual person and when I have housed dvd/cds in binders it doesn't register in my head when I'm flipping through the pages to find one. I need to see the cover art/ text in big letters on the side to realize its there.

My dvd collection isn't THAT big but it ain't small either so I think I can put off a few more years of the way things are right now. tho I do like that discgear thing someone wrote in the comments above. I saw one on clearance at Kmart and didn't realize it would pop out the disc like that with the label guide on the bottom. Guess I should have read the box. :\

serenity and firefly were both great. firefly occupies a very special spot in my beloved and cancelled DVD collection (firefly, freaks and geeks, wonderfalls...)

my mom recently got rid of all of her cd cases and switched them out with the little white envelopes. it looks very neat and clean and takes up so much less space.

What about a DVD carousel like:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=11038348&categoryId=32832&SR=sony_search_seo&SQS=DVP

With everyone going for 1TB media storage, these ought to come down in price.

I just wanted to note that sleeves are not going to scratch or damage your disc by sliding them in and out unless you are careless or are pulling them out day-in and day-out. My husband has a collection of over 2000 music CDs and our DVDs in such sleeves and they haven't taken any damage. I also stored software in very tight sleeves for years and none of them went bad.

Unless you are a serious collector who expects your discs to be around forever in a pristine state, I think there's little concern about damage from sliding discs in and out of sleeves.

I'm in the process of ripping down all of my dvds to a hard drive and running them through a media-center pc. Completely uncompressed and with every feature kept, a standard dvd costs less than $1.00 to store (we are now down to less than $0.20 per gig on external hard drives). Once ripped, the movies don't skip and they're very easy to back up if you use two hard drives on a RAID 0.

This eliminates the need for even slim-line or paper cases, as actual discs can be filed (in original packaging) in a box and kept in the basement or attic. It also eliminates the hassle of searching for the movie you want to watch.

I took your idea and expanded it slightly...
I color coded the DVD cases...
Red = Wife's movies
Green = Action Adventure
Blue = Old mostly B/W films
Yellow = Comedy

So far it's good...

thanx

i have a wall of dvds in their original cases and like it that way :-P like many others said before me, i like finding a movie by seeing the original artwork and font. it doesn't look any more cluttered than my other bookshelves (i have two more walls of those) even though guests usually sit staring up at it, checking for movies to borrow :-D

RE: the dvd cases
Check with your local library. I give old CD cases to mine and they use them to transfer cds (that have been returned in cracked cases) back to their home branch. This way, they don't have to buy them and you are re-using.

I like the idea of freeing up space, but I tend to sell DVDs I no longer want back to stores that sell used DVDs. Without the packaging I don't think you can or at least won't get as much for them.

I've been considering moving my essential DVDs over to these binders:

http://www.handstands.com/retail/cd-dvd-storage/large-storage-binder.php

I only have 14 music DVDs and no plans to add more, but I have my favorite TV series on DVD that I want to keep, yet don't want to take up as much space as they currently are.

I used Disc Sox. You get to slide the original covers into thin sleeves (like the case logic ones). each one can hold 2 dvds, and you can fit about 70 into one box that's about 12 inches deep (give or take). I bought a cool box at Bed Bath and Beyond and just slid it into my wall unit and it looks really great. You can flip thu the DVDs by category. I would never part with the covers, thats part of the fun in collecting the DVDs

While this idea is inspiring, because I'm thinking of moving my DVD storage to a different location, I prefer my DVDs arranged chronologically rather than alphabetically, and the visual familiarity of the spines of the DVD boxes help me locate a particular movie faster. This system of organization might handicap me!

I can't stand DVD or CD clutter, I've kept all that stuff in large CD binders for years. And I really don't buy DVDs that I don't plan to keep until they wear out, so I bypass that inner struggle about selling them at a later date. Netflix really helps me decide what to buy and when to just say "Oh yea, I've seen that."

I think this is a very clever and useful way to consolidate space consumed by an extensive DVD or even CD library.

Like some of the (overzealous) posters, I too am visual, and enjoy the covers as much as anyone. So I probably wouldn't consolidate in this fashion unless I needed to recoup the space.

I also like to resell my DVDs, but one could certainly consolidate this way, and still keep the dvd jacket covers in a file. Then just use the case from the latest DVD acquisition when you want to sell one and dig out the jacket cover from your file.

Seems like some posters are looking for obstacles rather than solutions.

I think gatoreater3's post about the slimline DVD cases is probably the best of all worlds. Slim cases, with covers.. cool.


And for the record, both Firefly/Serenity and Cheaper by the Dozen are awesome films/Series.

DRCny - This is exactly what I was talking about above. I was checking back in just in case someone mentioned them since I had forgotten the name. Thanks!

Not being a movie nerd, I just went the case route, although we jazzed it up a little - my wife got all Martha Stewart on them and put nice fabrics and tassles and whatnot over the boring black covers. Bonus: it makes it easy to tell the software from the DVD's, etc.

For those who have the alphabetical shuffle problem, I figured out a very simple solution. I just skip a few empty slots after each letter and start the next one on a new page, thereby only needing to do a grand reorg once every year or so.

I actually took the time to register to this site to express a couple of thoughts on this issue:

First, I love to organize and recently took to my CD collection. It pained me but I took every CD from it's jewel case and all of the artwork and transferred it to two 500 binders. I gave the jewel cases to friends who 'needed' them. Now my whole CD collection is not only well organized ... it's portable. The only problem I have with it is that the binder pages tend to tear rather easily under the weight of all of the CD's. Having to create a drawer space to shrink the collection seems like too much trouble when the binders solved the problem of space and my friends, leftover product.

I cannot seem to bring myself to do this to my film collection however. There is something about seeing the artwork and titles that are important to me. Also, alot of them have extras and though the DVD's fit into CD sleeves and thin jewel cases ... the artwork and extras often do not.

Lastly, there is the investment I put into the DVD's. A good deal of which was probably artwork and cases. The above solution does not deal with what to do with the leftovers and makes waste of any artwork or information that may have come with the product. So, my DVD collection remains in my closet in two ceiling reaching multi-shelf units I bought at IKEA ... well organized, out of the way, and out of sight.

Serenity rocks by the way and it's detractors make me realize how fortunate I am to be able to enjoy good story telling and a complex character arc. Firefly was an excellent series that deserved better.
Stargate SG-1 and Babylon5 are also great Science Fiction series, both of which I own the entire series and films. Not ready to junk the boxes to those ... not even close.