Old DVDs

Not sure what to do with my old movie DVDs. I have about 300 of them, many classic movies from the 1970s 80s and 90s which I have picked up over the years. I was going to just throw them away because I need the space and then I noticed that Netflicks is charging a fee to watch old classic movies. For example The Predator costs ?7.99. Selling them on EBay is not easy now because of the import costs and other taxes that have recently been introduced. Any ideas?

Well, it kinda depends on how much work you want to put in. The best but most time-consuming option is probably to use a PC with a DVD drive to rip them and get the digital file. Then you can use a service like Plex and have a sort of home media server that you can access from any PC or smart device in your home. This is exactly what I've done and I've got a nice little digital library now. It's a little technical but really not hard at all, just a little time-consuming. I'll edit this post in a bit with some more info.

Then once you have the digital copies you could sell the physical copies in a garage sale or in bulk or something and at least get a little back.

EDIT:

Okay so I was going to write up a whole big thing but I found some articles that do it much better.

This one will show you how to rip the DVDs to your computer so you have a digital copy - https://www.howtogeek.com/1...ip-them/
And this one will walk you through setting up the Plex media server - https://www.howtogeek.com/2...-device/

It's a bit time consuming at first and can be a pain to set up but it is so worth it to have a nice digital collection you can search through and sort and watch from any device and not be tied down to a DVD player or your physical location. With this setup I have the Plex server running off of my computer. So what I do is leave my computer on, then go over my buddy's house. He has the Plex app downloaded on his smart TV, so we just log in to my account and can watch any of my movies.

Here's what my library looks like.

Plex also has a free streaming TV-like service with some movies and a bunch of different channels, but I've never really used it. There's also an option to pay and upgrade your account but I've never seen a need. The free version has everything I need as a simple library manager.

One thing to consider though is that it will take up a lot of space on your computer hard drive. Each movie is about 2 GB each, generally. I bought an external hard drive to store mine on, but those are cheap. You can do the same thing with VHS tapes too and probably any other media but it's way more involved.

« Last edited by steelersrock01 on Nov 15th 2021 »

Yeah, definitely bulk sale when you are ready to let them all go. Mike has a good option to keep them digitally.

I edited my post with some info. It probably seems like a ton of work but you'll be happy if you do go with it or another type of digital preservation option. I know it can be kinda hard to part ways with your physical stuff. I had probably 300 games between the PS2, PS3, Gamecube, Wii, GBA, and DS when I was going into university that I had either no way to play anymore or no desire to play so I sold the vast majority at way less than their value. Now it's been about 10 years and I regret it sometimes but there's still ways to play them through emulation. Sometimes you do miss the original hardware though. It's the same thing with DVDs. Sometimes you do feel like just popping in a DVD or VHS tape to watch a Christmas movie or something. Hard to recreate that feeling when it's all digital.

Bro, I havent seen any of dem movies. lol

Wow, that's interesting, I never thought of doing that, thanks.

I did a bit of research, and physical copies of movies that are deleted and can no longer be purchased can go for quite a bit of money. I guess it's like those people that like to collect vinyl records as that was how they were originally released. Same with books I guess, just not the same reading a book on a computer as having a physical copy in your hand. I personally prefer the former, I suppose it's because that's what I'm used to.

Lol I haven't seen a good chunk of them either. Highly recommend 1917, though.

Yeah, some people are really attached to physical media. I used to be that way with books, but I bought into the ereader thing big time and now I can't imagine not having one. It's so much more convenient to have hundreds of books on one device than to have a dozen shelves. I only buy physical books if it's got a ton of pictures or something where it doesn't translate to the screen well. The e-ink screens they use honestly feel like reading from a real book more than a phone or monitor screen.

I agree. Physical copies are starting to become a thin of the past. Streaming and cloud storages basically causing them to go extinct.

Yep. I use the streaming services quite a bit but it is annoying not knowing if a movie or tv show is on this service or that. They move around all the time. That's why even stuff that's readily available I like to have my own copy of digitally. You never know when they'll remove it from netflix or jack the price up. TV shows are quite a bit harder to get a hold of than movies though.

Where do you get time to watch all these movies or is it a case of downloading them for the sake of having them in your collection? I have box sets from years gone by and to be honest I doubt I will ever see them again. Just too much stuff coming out on Netflicks and other providers. I'm from the old school of the days of going to Blockbusters to hire movies for a couple of nights for 3 pounds.

Mike: Yeah, I noticed that too. I don't get why they don't just keep what they have, but I guess it has to do with the contracts they sign with whomever they have to in order to stream them.

Dennis: You're giving me nostalgia.

Honestly, the only type of media I keep physical copies of are video games, records, and cassettes. The latter two have more to do with the soundwaves they give off compared to CDs/stream (which are the CD versions); CDs have more sharp waves while analog have more curved ones. Not sure why I still go with physical copies of video games, but I think that has more to do with the era I grew up in.

Dennis - I really don't watch a ton. Maybe a couple movies a week at night and every couple of weeks some friends have a movie night. Mostly it's a case of it just being nice to have my own copy. But I don't have kids or a ton of time consuming responsibilities or anything so really it's a matter of choosing whether I want to spend my time watching a movie/TV show vs. playing a game vs. reading a book. As the years go by I'm finding myself playing less and less video games and a lot of new TV isn't super interesting to me. So I've been trying to read more books and watch some of the movies I missed out on. It's a lot less of a time investment to spend 6 hours to finish a book or 2 hours on a movie than it is watching 5 seasons of a TV show where the episodes are an hour a piece or trying to finish the newest 100 hour game.

Warrior - I'm mostly digital these days for everything, especially music. Spotify has completely replaced CDs for me and when I do buy a new game the convenience of not having to change discs wins out for me. There is definitely something special about listening to music on vinyl though.

Vinyl is popular in the UK, original rock albums from the 60s and 70s can go for a lot of money if they are in mint condition. I wouldn't mind owning vinyl copies of the Rolling Stones, The Who, and Led Zeppelin myself. I have them all on CD but it just isn't the same, when I hold my friends original vinyl albums I feel as if I have a piece of history in my hands, it's a weird sensation. Same thing with comics and books, there's just something about the feel and smell, I can't explain it,

Vinyl has had a huge resurgence in the last decade or so here, too. I think a lot of it is young people that grew up with CDs already fading away and the start of buying music on iTunes and then that fading away into streaming services. People want to have something physical. Just feels more real.

« Last edited by steelersrock01 on Nov 17th 2021 »

Mike: I gotta have physical games. Stinks because I am usually the last to get my hands on it with predownloads, but it is what it is.

Dennis: Gotta love it.

It's crazy how quickly the world is changing. I'm seeing more and more electric cars on the road now. That was science fiction twenty years ago.

They are now testing cars where you get in, tap the coordinates of where you want to go and the car takes you there. How long before we see that?

Mobile phones now are ridiculous, apparently they are now more powerful and advanced than what NASA was in 1969 when the US supposedly put man on the moon. There's talk of everyone having a chip implanted into them soon which they can use to make purchases with, There's also talk of colonizing the moon in the next twenty years. The world is going mad.

Those self-driving cars that can get you places with no user input are probably still a solid decade off or so. Supposedly they work well on highways but if you're in an urban area they struggle. Of course every time you test it and there's an issue it gets overblown 1000x even though the average human driver makes a ton of mistakes daily.

Phones now are way, way, more powerful than those computers from the 1960s. I'm all for colonizing the moon in my lifetime but I'll pass on the implanted credit card lol.

Yeah, I know what you mean, I don't like that idea either. Apparently they are testing it in Sweden at the moment so its only a matter of time. I know it has been done on animals for several years now, we have a Toy rabbit, the miniture rabbit breed that doesn't grow and he's got a chip implanted in him with all his information.

Yeah when we had a dog we had her chipped. I think it's a good idea for pets but not people. Too much of a slippery slope.

Yeah, I feel the same. Not sure how it will go down with the general public either after seeing the amount of people that have refused to have the Covid injection. If everyone doesn't have the chip implanted then it's not much good. Criminals especially will be against it, the police will be able to track suspects on GPS.