How do you organize your movies and tv show collections?

[yoda313]

So do you organize your video collection? Regardless of whether it's physical discs and tapes or all digital files on a harddrive how organized is it?

Do you do it by actor? genre? decade? director?

Do you have a spreadsheet and update it with all of your movies?

I must confess to having no organizatonal scheme at all. And yes on occasion I have "lost" some movies...


How about you?

[cd090580]

My movies are organized by date of purchase...

[gadgetguy]

I have my DVDs in a bookcase designed for holding DVDs, and I try to keep multiple cases for the same series together, but beyond that there's no rhyme or reason.

[SCDVD]

Alphabetical by title.

[RabidDog]

Folders on a hard drive 1)movies (avi's) 2)Tv recs (mpg's)
Followed by sub folders genres DOcs thrillers Comedy MAin.
most movies fall into 2 or 3 genres (historical comedy Fantasy Pirate Adventures for instance/ Still looking for a Good software solution.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

Other.
I have one shelf for animation with Disney alphabatized, then DC Universe titles alphabatized, followed by everything else alphabatized, and finally Transformers alphabatized.

Another shelf with all Star Trek. Every episode of every series in stardate order (yes, I'm a big nerd). That took a lot of ripping and burning.

Then there's the 'main' collection which is everything else just put on the shelf in alphabetical order.

Finally, boxes full of cases, extra discs, stupid fancy packages etc that is hidden away in the basement of doom.

[Dv8ted2]

I have them alphabetical by title.

[Conquest10]

Other and combination. For physical, I have two sections for single and box sets. Usually organized by the amount of times I watch them. Digital I organize alphabetically and by genre (sections for movies that are family friendly and ones that are not). Now that I have began to just store the DVDs on my hard drive, I place the disc at the bottom shelf as I would now rarely need the disc.

[redwudz]

This is on my 'things to do' list. I have about 3TB of videos on my video server computers. Arranged by genre, but I have some of the same genre spread across several drives.

I did find a few programs that will list them in a Excel format, that's my next project. Then I can sort and organize. If I set it up properly, I should be able to open Excel, then pick the video and play it. Right now I have L through Z drives mapped to my my HTPC and I have to try to remember what is where.

[bmwracer]

You left out the most obvious choice: By Title.

[yuman]

I list by title using microsoft works. I have 3 fields for actors, 1 field for genre, 1 field by studio and a field for HD DVD. I can find a film by searching any field. Works for me.

[DereX888]

Why there is no obvious and most common option
BY TITLE alphabetically ?

[yoda313]

Ok I'm not perfect!!

That is why I always have an OTHER option

That way if I forget something there is an option Also if I add it now it will skew the results........

[solarfox]

Alphabetically by title, of course. I use a PalmPilot program called "SmartList to Go" to keep track of everything.

[DereX888]

Ok I'm not perfect!!

That is why I always have an OTHER option

That way if I forget something there is an option Also if I add it now it will skew the results........

Since you don't have the most normally used option, the poll results *are* skewed anyways...

[AlecWest]

Alphabetical by title.

Ditto for me, too.

Regards,
J. Alec West

[disturbed1]

Collections are on their own self ordered by number (Hellraiser I,II,III........) everything else alphabetical by title.

[lordsmurf]

TV and cartoons, all box sets, by genre (in cases on shelf)
Movies by alpha (wallet, removed from cases)

[dadrab]

Aphabetized by title with series in chronological order from right to left.

The right to left thing stems from not having a record rack when I was a kid. I'd stack my records (in the sleeves, of course) up with the higher alphabetical titles at the bottom and the lower ones closer to the top. That way, I could pick up the stack (remember, I was a kid - it was a short stack) and flip through them to find something.

Once my dad and I built shelves for me to store them on, I picked up my stack and placed it on the shelf so I could see the titles printed on the edges of the sleeves. It was arranged from right to left. I just kind of got used to it that way.

At one point, I tried arranging from left to right, but couldn't find a damn thing, so I went back to, what most folks would call, backward. 8)

[noki]

Access database. title, date, DVD#. have fields for gene, actor but do not use them often; laziness.

[TBoneit]

Series are kept togther and in the DVD changer Music DVDs are kept together. Other than that no organization. Most of my DVDs are older titles. Most of what I buy are from a local Video rental store at a reduced rate coming off of rental usage. Of those most of them do not live up to the jacket description.

[Baldrick]

Randomized.

[TheFamilyMan]

Organized by media type (DVD, VHS) and origin (store bought, home made). This organization is primary due to the space available for storage. Other than that it is somewhat disorganized, except for the family footage DVDs which have their home with the photo albums and are chronilogically ordered.

[filmboss80]

Gotta chime in with most "other" posters. Alphabetical by Title seemed the most obvious to me that I was stunned not to see it as a choice. I almost didn't vote when it wasn't listed. I wonder if the poll isn't already skewed because many didn't vote when they didn't see their choice.

[Nitemare]

I do mostly A to Z by title but I keep arbitrary "collections" together (also sorted A to Z or chronologial order).

The "New Jersey Trilogy" by Kevin Smith (7 movies strong now) all stay together... Japanese monster movies all stay together ... old B&W horror are together... all Roger Corman movies together... all Jackie Chan's together etc.

[DereX888]

Randomized.

That still works with about 100 discs or so, but if there is more I guess you are not planning to ever find any particular title again?

[mats.hogberg]

I bolt cakeboxes to the wall. Very cheap. Very compact.


/Mats

[Xylob the Destroyer]

I must assume you are not married!

[mats.hogberg]

Actually I'm not, but living together since 20 years+
The cake box on the wall is preferred to having disks cluttering up every horizontal surface of all kinds of furniture, so...
And I'm exaggerating a little. There's only one cake box bolted to the side of a wall mounted book (DVD case) shelf. But I'm still very fond of the idea.

/Mats

[jkleslie]

Alphabetically by title for me, as well. I ignore "The" in my DVDs, but not in my online backups (it's a wife thing - shrug).