[quote name='javeryh'] I spend money on stupid shit just as much as the next person but I just can't understand owning unopened media. These things will drop in price over time - it's a fact. Buying now without watching them is a complete waste of money when you could buy later for less. Just because something is a "good deal" now doesn't mean you have to buy it.[/quote] Just wanted to point out that although movies will drop in price, in my experience, there is a certain threshold to which they won't go below (except in rare glitch/deal cases). I expect most average DVD's to be $5 before I buy them, and $10 if they are something really special. But DVD has been around for about 10 years. When I saw HD stuff hitting $10 (mostly with BOGO's) after 2 years, I knew to jump in; to me HD qualifies as "really special". And my movies have averaged about $6-$8. I don't feel ripped off on these at all, and wouldn't expect them to be any less any time soon.
And, just because my media is unopened doesn't mean it wasn't probably the best deal there would ever be on said media.
[quote name='Wiilikeit']No judgements against any of you all here but what a waste of money. Take it from a 1500 plus DVD collection. I learned my lesson the hard way. By the time you build your collection a new format comes along, and the way technology advances faster bluray will be in the same place dvd are in in 3 to 4 years.[/quote]
I can't say I have even a third of what you have (I've got about 300 DVD's), but I don't see it as bad as all that. VHS's lifespan was 1976-1996 (when DVD was introduced) and DVD didn't overtake VHS sales until 2003. So VHS enjoyed a 20 year life before a new format came about, and was dominate for 27 years. One could argue that Laserdisc saw demise when it was probably the better format, but I believe new HD media to be different in that:
-Players will play DVD's as well as new HD Media - an upgrade instead of a total overhaul
-DVD's and CD's have become accepted and widely used - Laserdiscs were HUGE and cumbersome, and at the time, not really like anything else. New tech is hard for masses to adopt, and vhs probably seemed simpler and cheaper.
But now were looking at DVD fading into HD, ten years after coming into the world and only five years after gaining dominance. But, the important thing to consider here is, the jump in quality and format isn't that big. It's not an overhaul but an upgrade. We may see a new format in the next 10 years, maybe less, but I can't imagine it being that much better - most likely just a change in distribution (ie internet). And I believe that will most likely be more crippling to media than anything (DRM problems, anyone?).
Another thing to point out is that for me, I really like collecting; always have, always will, from pogs to cards to DVD's. Netflix/Blockbuster won't cut it for me.
