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Monday, June 26, 2006
By Christina VanGinkel
Building a library of your favorite DVD's no longer means having to take out a second mortgage on your home. While newly released titles are often on the high end price wise, costing upwards of twenty to thirty dollars for a single title, and much more for a set, say of a season's worth of shows, bargain bins with titles costing five dollars and even less, are popular in most electronic departments of your favorite stores. It is not even uncommon to find them on a shelf offering discounted items at the local grocery.
Buying wisely though is the most practical way to build a library of DVD's that you can be proud of, and that you will actually use. Buying a DVD that you are not going to watch at least a couple of times is not really worth the cost, even if the cost is quite low to begin with. Take for example a buying frenzy that I took part in about two years ago. Stopping at a local discount store, I came across several bins of DVD's that were marked down to the incredibly low price of one dollar. Over the following couple of days, I actually went back to the store several times, and it the end, spent upwards of about fifty dollars. Not a large sum, but hey, fifty dollars is fifty dollars. If you are like me, with a somewhat meager budget, fifty dollars can be spent on many things, and dollar DVD's should not top the list.
Still, I was proud that I had been able to kick off our then small collection of DVD titles with so many. I had browsed through the hundreds of titles the store had available, picking out those that I had thought my husband and kids would watch. I even picked up a couple of old westerns to send to my brother, proud owner of his first DVD player just a short while at the time. Well, of the numerous titles that I bought, I figure that we have watched a total of three of them, each a single time. Sadly, this is not an exaggeration. The DVD's were a poor quality. Why I figured for a dollar they would be, I do not know. They are hard to navigate, and my youngest son, technical wizard that he is, told me the only thing the DVD's were good for would be to use them as coasters, I kid you not.
When building a library of DVD titles, ask yourself if you or someone in your home will watch the movie more than once. Consider what the viewing habits of your family or yourself truly are. Only by taking the time to answer these two basic queries, will you be able to make a good decision on your future DVD purchases.
Sure, there will be those movies that you will add through the years to your DVD library that will be mistakes. Some might not get the viewing time others might. Some might end up just not being what you thought they were, or you might even end up with a double here and there, forgetting that you already own the title (Note below on how to keep that from occurring).You can always sell such titles, as there are sites like eBay or Half.com that make this quite easy. Unlike dumping nearly fifty DVD's that are not worth the postage, I would have to charge someone to ship them!
Do not overlook the same sites that you might use to sell your own unwanted titles when it comes to shopping. Half.com and eBay, along with online sites that sell electronics and various other products are often great places to get bargain prices on your favorite DVD titles.
Be sure to read the fine print when shopping either in person or online. If you have a preference for widescreen versus full screen, be sure you know which you are buying. If you are shopping for a special edition, double check which special edition you are getting, as even a single title may have more than one special edition. One might include a soundtrack, while another might have a disk of extras, while yet another might have even more added extras. Difference in cost from special edition to special edition might differ greatly too, so be sure you are buying the version you want, otherwise you might have the movie, but not all the extras you thought you were getting.
To keep from buying doubles, create a list of your library's titles in your Palm Pilot or Pocket PC, or even a small wire bound notebook, purse sized of course. Separate the titles by genre, alphabetically, or both. Also, keep a list of wanted titles, those that you know you want to add to your library, but are not yet available, or maybe you are waiting to find them at a cheaper price than when they were first released. If you are searching for a special edition of the title, be sure to make note of that too. This way, when you come across a bargain bin, you will be armed with the knowledge of what you have, and what you want. If there is more than one shopper, such as two spouses, just duplicate the list, and keep track of any changes the other might make.
Building a DVD library can take years. It will probably be a progression that has no end. Titles will come and go, but if you or your family enjoys spending time watching movies, you will all take pleasure in the time you spent choosing titles that are worth watching.
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