Clutter is a horrible thing no matter what form it takes, but when it comes to our movies and music, sometimes we just let it get out of hand. It's just storage on a hard drive or room on a shelf, right? But it isn't — that clutter will take over if we let it. That's why, if you haven't already, it's time to take charge and get organized with your media. Here's how.
1. Go Pruning: Whether it's your movies or your music, we've all made some bad decisions along the way, so now's the time to get rid of it. Maybe it's a Katy Perry single you bought in a moment of weakness, or you still have your college roommate's DVD of "Dude, Where's My Car?" stashed in a drawer. If you don't plan on listening or viewing it again, dump it.
2. Buy Storage: If you're still hanging onto the physical media, you'll want shelves to keep your DVDs, BluRays or CDs clean and organized. You want something that will allow you to properly display your collection so you can access them easily. For digital media, buy an external hard drive to hold your movies and music, and then use an old CD spindle to hold all the discs you won't be needing anymore.
3. Go Digital: Both movies and music work well on your computer, and the only space you need is room on a hard drive or two. The popular favorite is iTunes, but there are plenty of other options too, so look around to see what you like. For movies, rip them using a program like Handbrake (or something similar), and CDs are just a drive and burn away.
4. Get Alphabetical: You could organize your movies or music by genre, type (HD vs SD) or any number of different options, but the easiest way to go is alphabetical. This way, you never have to wonder if you put something under "New Age" or "World Music," and can find your stuff easily.
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i had to do this a few weeks ago before a big move. Not only do we have over 400 vhs (yes...those old tape things!), 300 video games/dvds/tv seasons...we also have a good size box of records and another of old cds/tapes. After 3 painstaking hours in the basement with my husband, he let a good majority of each go. But we're still nowhere near 'digital' like I would like to be.
maybe...someday.
I am really into music and I still buy CDs and vinyl because it's just sad how awful the same song sounds on digital formats.
And I think a great way to handle a large music collection is to hang all CDs on the wall like the picture above shows.
I have 95% of my media in digital format. The only ones left in physical media are my Star Wars, Indiana Jones, LOTR, and Gipsy Kings collection.
I'll be adding a Harry Potter boxed set once a complete set comes out. Other than that, everything is digital and on hard drives. I have a PC that I use as a media server, so anyone in the family can access it, and I can also access it through my phone or tablet.
I traded most of my cd's for an ipad from Ipodmeister.com. Unfortunately the exchange rate has gone up considerably. You can still get hard drives cheap. Doing this gave me good incentive to get it done.
I threw out all my DVD cases and bought a book of cd sleeves to store them all. its easy to flip through and takes up SO much less space!
I bought plastic cd envelopes at Staples and ditched the clunky plastic dvd boxes. I got a few Stockholm storage boxes from the Container store and now I have them alphabetized and they take up waaaaay less space.
http://www.staples.com/Staples-CD-DVD-Envelopes-Assorted-Colors-50-Pack/product_472344
http://www.containerstore.com/shop?productId=10022885&N=&Ntt=stockholm+cd
Two words.... ipodmeister and handbrake.
I've conquered books, for the most part, but music and movies are still too painful to cull... I hope to be as brave as the rest of you... someday.
The music chosen for the photo above made me smile! I haven't listened to some of that in years!!
I first converted all my dvd into DiscSox, but that still took up a bunch of space. We then purchased archival DVD storage sleeves (8 discs per page) and a binders from the Container Store to downsize our collection. Not only is it more visually appealing in 3 black cardboard style binders, but it takes up so little space!
I download my music to my laptop, and backed it up on a hardrive. I then placed all the cd's in box on the side walk for people to sift though and take a few (thats how we do it Park Slope,BK). I think someone took the whole box though.
I still have about 15 dvd's bc I do use my DVD player (netflix)-but I wouldnt buy anymore DVDs or CD's.
As a musician I have to say that MP3 is a terrible format for music. The quality is very low - you'd be better off with vinyl or possibly even cassette tapes. So you can carry around thousands of tracks in your pocket... What good is that if they all sound like s**t? If you're serious about listening to good music, keep your CDs.
I second Discsox, for the cd's and dvd's we kept.
I defy anyone complaining about mp3 quality to tell the difference between a 320kbps mp3 file and a CD. You are delusional.
Has no-one heard of lossless audio? Rip to FLAC or Apple Lossless, and lo-and-behold the audio is as good as the CD. (Which is probably over-compressed at the studio if it's from the last 10 years)
Even Neil Young agrees that MP3s sound crappy. AIFF for me!
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/interview_with_neil_young.php
wow. surprised no one has brought up the discussion about the legality of burning music/movies and giving away/selling the originals yet
Blum, you know that CD is a digital format, right?
You do not need to rip CDs to MPS. Rip them to FLAC or if on iTunes Apple Lossless. It is a CD quality, in fact there is no difference in measureable sound from the original CD and it takes up 1/3-1/5 the space of WAV. I have ~900 CDs of music and itr takes up ~400GB on a hard drive.
Agree with Kaz. Isn't it technically illegal to keep a copy of a CD while selling the original? This was the first thing that came to mind when i read the post; not that everyone doesn't do it anyway.
I love how people assume CD music is high quality. It's 320kbps, ish. Converting a CD to FLAC is just choosing to have a bigger file for no reason. Maximum quality is set at recording.
A digital copy of music doesn't lose any quality, by definition: it's a bit-for-bit copy of the source, unless you down-convert it.
CDs are not 320kbps, ish. They are 1411 kbps ripped AIFF/FLAC. FLAC is an uncompressed version of the original.
If using a ripper with AccurateRip database checking, a bit for bit replication can be obtained. i Tune s music among others, is compressed. Sure, most people can't hear a difference or care. But just saying a digital copy of music doesn't lose any quality needs more explanation, ie what format?
Kaz is right. When you purge what you don't want, you should delete the digital copies that reside in your digital library. I'm surprised that Ipodmeister gets away with a ripping solution where they will rip the files for you and then sell your cd's.
I've already thrown away my DVD cases and stored the discs in binders but now I'm thinking of putting them all in digital format. Can anyone suggest how I may go about doing that? No I'm not a pirate I just want a digital copy of what I have.
Thanks a bunch.
even digital files can get out of hand, i have collected over 36k song on my mac pro and listen to less that 3% i would assume per month. i just cant let go. maybe when somebody comes out with a mega streaming library plan and ISP dont cap your bandwidth per month i can get rid of some files.
WAYWARDMEDIC -
if you own a mac try handbrake. its free and rips dvds to itunes format (apple Tv/ipods) i have used this to rip all my sons cartoon dvds so they can play on the ipad.
+1 for handbrake
I love how people assume CD music is high quality. It's 320kbps, ish.
Not even close. A well mastered CD will sound virtually identical to the tape it was made from (or bit-identical, if the original tape was recorded at 16-bit, 44kHz). As opposed to both vinyl and analog cassette, which both require that the original recording be altered - often radically - to conform to the many, many limitations of those obsolete formats.
A properly-encoded 128kbps AAC file is a more accurate copy of the original recording - to human ears, anyhow - than the best vinyl record ever made.
Don't know if I'll ever be able to downsize our collection of movies (1400ish, and more coming in all the time). Ah well, we're movie people!
@ yuppiescum - yes, I know that. But for me, cds are something physical what I can hold in my hands in the first place.
And to everyone who doesn't believe that there is any difference in the music quality - just try it: Listen to the same song first on vinyl, then on cd and mp3 - I promise, when you love music you will be shocked how much get lost. We did the same at school.
Anyway, I just came back to this post because I found this great wall console for cds http://www.architonic.com/pmsht/flex-montina/1010121 - Hope you like it as much as I do :)
Don't dump it. At least pass it on either to a friend, a charity shop og sell it on ebay or elsewhere.
like 'BECCA'LISE I'm also a bigtime movie person but with limited space I've bought a couple of dj cases. Binders don't hold enough dics but the dj cases can hold 500/1000/? depending on which size you get. They come with numbers on the sleeves and an index card but since my collection is ever growing this doesn't really work for me. Instead I laminated some sheets of plain white paper and stuck a letter in the corner (in hind sight I would print the letters and THEN laminate but you live and you learn). That way I can add titles alphabetically and by genre. Here's some pic's http://ploefff.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/bogstavjagt/