Dr. Boxlove or how I learned to stop worrying and go digital. part one.

Entertainment, Movies, Projects, Stuff and Things

I’m pretty savvy in the digital world. I’ve had an mp3 player since 2001 and I haven’t bought a physical CD since High School. But I’ve just realized that there’s just something scary about getting rid of physical media. It might be that I’ve moved past the time in my life where I want to have all the movies I like out on display. That is a very geeky thing to do, be defined my our choices in movies. It’s the first time that I’ve ever really felt like I’m growing up… get off my lawn kids!

This project started a few months ago when I hooked up a modded Xbox running XBMC in the living room and networked it to a file server running Linux in the other room.  suddenly it was very easy to play all the media files that I had *cough* acquired *cough* in college.  This and the introduction and acceptance of the Blu-ray format caused me to question the value of the 100’s of DVDs that I had collected over the years. I suddenly felt like a guy who had closets full of VHS tapes that were now worthless.  Well, they’re not as worthless as VHS, they wont fade over time and they take up less room. But in the coming resolution wars (lazer 3d quad HD TVs) what good is something that’s only 480p? Suddenly the “Ultimate Collectors Edition” has become no better than a Chinatown bootleg.  Couple that with the news that a co-worker at the office got rid of all of his DVDs online and made about $140 bucks and I was sold on the idea of going digital.

I’ve decided to keep some of the discs, I cannot get rid of any signed Kevin Smith movie and I think the people who design the boxes for Futurama should get some kind of award. So I developed an informal ranking system based on my love for the movie, the quality of the box, and the price I can sell it for. I have 4 ranks…

  1. Keep the DVD.
  2. Copy the DVD to DVD-R and sell the DVD.
  3. Rip the DVD to 700mb file and sell the DVD.
  4. Just Sell it.

I’m in the middle of this process now and I’ve noticed something, I really like physical media. I mean I haven’t watched some of these movies in years but I like being able to pick up the box and look through the materials.  I’m sure it’s not just me, I think it’s a geeky thing, but I appreciate a well designed box.  I’ve found myself setting aside some of the movies that I was going to sell because they had great packaging.  I never thought I’d be the guy to hang on to the media he grew up with. My brother in law has literally hundreds of cassette tapes and I thought he was crazy for keeping them.  I’ve told people before that I was going to sit out this round of media (Blu-ray) and wait for the digital revolution to come and based on the size of the Blu-ray market, I’m not the only one.  But I’m here to tell you that it is going to be hard to transition.

Also you should know that the three disc “Ace Ventura” collection has a lovely box.

Later!