Imperfect Digital Future

When I amassed 50 DVDs five years ago circumstances forced me to sell them off. I did quite well out of it, so I have no regrets. I've kept all my movies on video, if I ever want to watch them I have video capture equipment to put them on DVD even if I'd need to buy a signal booster to knock out the Macrovision. with that hassle factor costing £40, when you can now buy a DVD player for quarter of the price most people chose to buy films again on DVD even with those terrible single featureless discs which are the first to end up in sales as loss leaders.

Overdosing on VHS, and that enforced sell-off of DVDs and games, did teach me something useful: never to get caught with too many films, games or too much music on a single type of media at a time. Now, whenever I hit 50 DVD movies, I sell some off to keep it at a constant level. I have a Cineworld film subscription pass and watch as many movies at the cinema as I can, and buy very little because it'll be on TV 2-4 years down the line if I don't have time to catch it on its first run. I have rarely bought a film on DVD after watching it on television because it was such a great and undiscovered gem that I should have seen it on the big screen. As well as the added social event dimension which the cinema can represent, it's a great way to preview your DVD collection.

My other policy which explained my relatively low number of DVDs was the fact that I didn't want that many discs without knowing I would watch them lots of times (this was 1998 when they were still expensive and featureless unless you imported them, and the infamous 'flipper' disc would end up on Watchdog). So the older discs in my collection are living and breathing and have been watched, which isn't something I could say for my video collection even now. Check your own DVD collection if you have more than 100 and see just how many are waiting to be watched, even if you loved them in the cinema - that's dead money.