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How do people with large collections store/catalog their DVDs?
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorSpikyCactus
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Registered: July 16, 2010
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I’ve bought a lot of these recently from Argos:

Argos Unit

They look okay and you get enough space for up to 80 DVDs for £19.99, which is pretty decent I think.  If you live in a small place like me, they’re really good as you can put them into all sorts of odd corners too.  There’s also room on the top for odd shaped box sets etc.  Here’re four in a row:



The other thing I’ve done to ‘make’ more space is build a set of shelves that stick directly out from the wall near a corner, which effectively makes a little room (without a door) that you can use most of three sides of for storage:



Paul
Do you ever find yourself striving for perfection with an almost worthless attempt at it?  Guttermouth "Lemon Water".  Also, I include in my Profiler database VHS tapes, audio DVDs, audio books (digital, cassette and CD), video games (digital, DVD and CD) and 'enhanced' CDs with video tracks on them, as well as films and TV I've bought digitally.  So I'm an anarchist, deal with it.  Just be thankful I don't include most of my records and CDs etc in it too; don't think I haven't been tempted...
 Last edited: by SpikyCactus
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorbbbbb
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Quoting SpikyCactus:
Quote:
I’ve bought a lot of these recently from Argos:

Argos Unit

They look okay and you get enough space for up to 80 DVDs for £19.99, which is pretty decent I think.

Thanks for sharing, Paul!

Those look like Benno.

Quote:
If you live in a small place like me, they’re really good as you can put them into all sorts of odd corners too.

I agree with the small place / odd corner scenario. Else the twice as deep / quadruple as wide Billy would have a much better cost-benefit ratio.
Don't confuse while the film is playing with when the film is played. [Ken Cole, DVD Profiler Architect]
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorSpikyCactus
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Registered: July 16, 2010
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That’s interesting.  The Ikea versions are cheaper or more expensive (depending on the colour) but look the same in the pictures.  (They have identical dimensions to the Argos ones.)  The only difference I can see is that the Ikea ones are 2.6kg lighter but magically hold 8 more DVDs!  (Must by slim case ones...)

What’s most exciting is that Ikea now do home delivery!  It didn’t for years and as I haven’t got a store anywhere near where I live I’d sort of got used to ignoring it.  My credit card thanks you...
Do you ever find yourself striving for perfection with an almost worthless attempt at it?  Guttermouth "Lemon Water".  Also, I include in my Profiler database VHS tapes, audio DVDs, audio books (digital, cassette and CD), video games (digital, DVD and CD) and 'enhanced' CDs with video tracks on them, as well as films and TV I've bought digitally.  So I'm an anarchist, deal with it.  Just be thankful I don't include most of my records and CDs etc in it too; don't think I haven't been tempted...
 Last edited: by SpikyCactus
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantDave Jerrard
Registered: October 3, 2008
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Quoting SpikyCactus:
Quote:
That’s interesting.  The Ikea versions are cheaper or more expensive (depending on the colour) but look the same in the pictures.

I've considered Ikea, but I find their solutions to be too limited, and most wast a lot of space with thick wood supports.  With a large collection, the wood spacing itself uses a quarter or more of the storage area.

I hit on an early solution years ago when I was just getting near the 500 disc mark, and that was Atlantic wire shelving units.  They were only ~56" tall, but I found if you bought two, you could alternate the shelves to span three or four connected columns...



A few years ago I tracked down some taller ones (~74") which gave me a couple more rows of storage...



They're fairly cheap (around $75 per rack), lightweight, customizable, and come with enough shelves that when spaced for DVDs, leave you enough for at least another half rack.  I bought three, and made four columns of shelves with them and have enough left over for a fifth.  I have over 2000 titles in these now.

Later on, I'd like to get something a little nicer, preferably with sliding doors to cover them & make the collection blend in with the wall better.  Ikea used to have those, but they were short.


He Who Has Been Thinking About Curtains For These.
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile Registrantmediadogg
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Registered: March 18, 2007
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For those favoring electronic storage, have you noticed that you can get 3TB USB external drives for $140 now? (Hitachi). That's a minimum of 500 DVDs at a liberal estimate of 6GB/per!!!! Or 100 BD at 30GB, although recently most I bought are larger than that.

That is getting down into the price per BD disc of my Sony CX960 which stores 400 BD, for which I paid $600.

But the 3TB drive now beats the former champ - CX995V: 400 DVDs for under $300.
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantRobAGD
Registered: June 3, 2007
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Yea, I am in process of building a NSA for my digital media

But I was hunting a bit, found someone new 960's for under 500 and new 700es for around 800.

woof, I wish I had the $ for the 7000es hell even a 960 at this point would be nice.

-R
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantkovacs01
Registered: March 13, 2007
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I have a couple of these spinning towers:

DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorbbbbb
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Quoting kovacs01:
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I have a couple of these spinning towers:

Cool, thanks for sharing! Would you show them? One tower alone should hold about 800 DVDs. Large collections arouse me.
Don't confuse while the film is playing with when the film is played. [Ken Cole, DVD Profiler Architect]
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantkovacs01
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They actually will fit 29 keep cases or 34 blu ray cases per shelf.  That one you see there is completely full.  My collection only includes 1200-1300 titles, so the other one is for TV series and box sets.  However, it is empty right now since I have movers coming in 2 weeks.  I packed up that one because I don't want them handling box sets they might damage.
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorSwissFilm
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I use for my Blu-rays the racks from Boltz in Arizona:
http://www.boltz.com/blu-ray-disc-floor-rack-shelving-bd-392.html

They have the same racks also for DVD's and for CD's. They are assembled in about half an hour. Looks then like this:



Greez from Fridu in Switzerland
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorwhispering
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Registered: March 13, 2007
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I've done a full circle on trying to figure out the best storing furniture for my DVDs. Finally went back to using lundia shelving system. Though this time with a white finish:



Still need to buy a few more shelves though. I've used shelves from that manufacturer over 2/3 of my life, and it seems they've become what i compare everything else to.
 Last edited: by whispering
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantJRohio
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One of the nice things about DVDs is that they are not all that deep, so you can make shelving for them that does not take up more than about 8 inches of depth.

Fortunately, I only have to store half that number, and I have a basement to do it with.

Being a librarian, they are arranged by genere, then alpha by title.

The notebook thing isn't a bad idea, but you will loose the covers in most of them.  If the covers aren't all that important to you, they can be a great space saver.  I would suggest not using a binder that is more than about 2 inches thick though, as the discs get pretty heavy.  Oh, and the binders are not all that good for archival storage.

Very cool to see what other people have done.  Mine are not so handsome, being in the basement.  I use 8X12 cinder blocks laid sideways to support home made plywood shelves.  To keep the ply from sagging, I had a second piece of ply dado cut and glued it to the back side of each shelf.  They supported heavy books for 20 years without sagging, so DVDs are a snap!
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorCharlieM
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I actually built my own shelves (not happy with shelving available, for the prices they are available, or future availability for expansion)

I built a series of shelves out of yellow pine 1 x 6 with a 1X10 base (for stability)  it is then sanded, sanded some more, then sanded even more.  Once I was satisfied with the sanding, I covered them with 2 coats of Mission oak gloss stain.  Gave it kind of a rustic oak look.  I nailed a harboard backing to finish them.

they are 9 shelves high (just over 81" tall) and approx 31.5" wide  This gave me about 50 standard DVD cases per shelf (loose fit)  450 per unit, and I have built 5 so far.

Charlie
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantimfallen_angel
Registered: February 20, 2009
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My collection is what would be considered a bit large.  I'd say at least 3000 DVDs (movies) and about 60-70 TV series, so at average of 5 seasons each of about 6 disks, (so approx. 2100 more DVDs but in sleeker cases that take less space)

I have several "bookshelves" in my office, so it's fairly taken over the three walls, but I've got other locations in the house with more bookshelves or such.

My big project last year was to rip all of these to hard drives, and convert the TV series to single AVI files per episodes, and also converted every VHS tape I had (over 200) and now have a nice media center system with a 16TB setup (8x2TB in e-sata boxes).

With that said, I've stopped buying almost any hard copies for about a year as I've started getting most from online stores, so I'm easily over 4,000 movies and 100 TV series, and still enough space for a while longer.

I realized that I seldom needed the extra languages and subtitles, and the extras are for the most part, not really worth it.  I'm still planning to get the odd DVD once in a while for the special movies, where I'd actually want the extras such as deleted scenes.

Like CDs to mp3s, once you have a system that you can access everything instantly, it's hard to go back, so my DVDs only get any usage when the kids grabs one to watch in their rooms.

The big thing for cataloging my collection was with DVD Profiler for a long while, but since I can pull my list from my media center now, plus that I get the images, movie info/actor info directly from Media Center (using the Media Browser plug-in).

I wish that DVD Profiler would have the capacity to link to Media Center so to synchronize the info between the two of them.
 Last edited: by imfallen_angel
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantimfallen_angel
Registered: February 20, 2009
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I read more of this thread and saw a few others with similar Media Center systems.

A few pointers....

Do NOT use RAID for these sort of systems so to believe them safe from a drive failure.  RAID is about speed, and not backup.  A RAID that fails can easily mean losing your collection as it can cascade due to these files being larger than standard files such as documents, photos, etc. that is the standard fare.

I've discussed this in many forums before and many people going with a single RAID approach ended up regretting it when something did happen.  If you do go ahead with such an approach, then make sure that you get a duplicate system.

Speed wise, you are not going to gain anything as video playback does not require high speeds.

For example, on my system:

I'm using mostly green drives with e-sata boxes (2 boxes with 4 drives per box = 16TB) using an e-sata card with port multiplier.  This gives me each hard drive as an individual drive, so I can easily assign everything in any way I want. I have this setup in duplicate, so if I have one drive that goes, I simply would need to copy my second copy (backup) to a new drive and not have to rebuild anything like a RAID requires.

These boxes are a LOT cheaper also than a RAID approach (they can be found for around 100$ each) and with 2TB drives at under 80$.. for about 500$ you can have a 8TB box... but of course, I recommend getting a second set for backup.  But you can make your system grow as you need it (use only 2 drives for your main and the other two for backups for a 4TB system).

About the speed, I can easily be viewing a movie on my machine, while in the other room, my other computer is pulling another video via WIFI, and with no slowdown, skipping, etc. whatsoever.

I've checked the WIFI's bandwidth as it was playing, and it barely requires wireless "G" speeds (and I have "N").  During use, I get that a DVD resolution video pulls a maximum of 0.50% of my Gbps, so about 500bps (or 50Bps), well under even WIFI speeds.
 Last edited: by imfallen_angel
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorbbbbb
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Quoting imfallen_angel:
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My collection is what would be considered a bit large.  I'd say at least 3000 DVDs (movies) and about 60-70 TV series, so at average of 5 seasons each of about 6 disks, (so approx. 2100 more DVDs but in sleeker cases that take less space)

I have several "bookshelves" in my office, so it's fairly taken over the three walls, but I've got other locations in the house with more bookshelves or such.

A picture is worth a thousand words.
Don't confuse while the film is playing with when the film is played. [Ken Cole, DVD Profiler Architect]
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