It turns out that people still watch DVDs

[caption align=“center”] Photo from Stocksnap.io[/caption]

I decided to clean out my very small DVD collection. Out of all the mini collections or groups of things I own, my DVD collection is probably the smallest. It’s probably not even sufficient enough to be called a collection, though – there were probably about six DVDs and one little boxset.

Most movie buffs will have an easy time converting to digital, I think – everything is on Netflix or on the Apple Store or easily obtainable online, unless you are into really rare bootlegs or something. Not too long ago I had disposed of pirated DVDs and torrented files burned to disc, because they were definitely easily obtainable online for a small price (or Brandon had them somewhere and told me there was no point keeping them in disc form).

Not only do I have no idea where our family’s DVD player is, but I have not owned a desktop computer for several years, and only own a MacBook – which doesn’t have a CD drive. Because why would you ever need one?! :D

The only CD drives that I really have available are that of my record player (which also amusingly has a cassette player – by the way, I got rid of all my cassettes some time ago, even the rare Nirvana ones 😭), and the one in my car. The one in my car is rendered useless because my phone connects to the car automatically and I can play music from there. I suppose if I didn’t have internet, I could use the CD player, but I don’t keep CDs in my car, and the radio may not be such a bad option.

Anyway, I was left with DVDs I couldn’t even watch.

Copying DVD content

It turns out I am one of those people who watches television shows that no one else knows about… I had searched online for some of the shows and movies I had on DVD so I could purchase and download, but with no luck. Lockie Leonard, for example, is an Australian television series from about eight years ago that is no longer airing. I couldn’t find anywhere online where I could purchase and download.

I ended up borrowing a Superdrive from work so I could copy the DVD content to my computer and eventually, dispose of the DVDs. A Superdrive is just a disc reader that you plug in to your MacBook via USB. Apple obviously created the product for people who were like, “OMG but I need a CD drive, WTF?”

I used the application Handbrake, as recommended by some coworkers, to copy the DVD content. I had a hard time copying some of them. The files I ended up with were pixelated and skipped a lot. Nothing was wrong with the actual disc, but I suspect there were some settings I had to go through to fix it up, or there was protection on the disc preventing it from being copied in that way.

I didn’t feel like waiting another hour for some discs to copy, and I realised I hadn’t watched some of these DVDs for many years. I gave up and decided I wouldn’t really be at a loss. I really liked the shows and movies but not quite enough to watch them again.

The “problem” of sentimental value

I managed to successfully copy DVDs with my dance and school music concerts. The quality turned out alright, even though some of the files were 10GB alone! I am still wondering what to do with the DVDs and the cases, I might just destroy them. The covers are nothing special, they are over a decade old so the quality is pretty grainy. Over the years I stopped ordering the dance concert DVDs, so in a way I don’t feel I had the dedication to them to begin with. :P

I also copied my graduation ceremony. I don’t know why but I only have one of my graduation ceremonies – maybe sales declined? :P Chances are, I couldn’t justify buying it for my “fifteen seconds of fame” through a 90-minute ceremony… also, the DVD came in a cheap plastic case so I’m sure as hell it wasn’t worth the money.

The important thing is, I have digital copies on my computer of what is sentimental, and I probably won’t look at them in decades, but it’s one of those things that you feel like you have to keep in some way, shape or form.

I’m not going to forget that I had some great dance concerts, and I don’t get to keep the hats I wore from graduation, but at least I’ll personally know the years of study I endured.

Selling the rest

I put some of the DVDs on eBay just to see what would happen. I didn’t expect anyone to buy my DVDs but I set them at a starting bid of $0.99 and put a reasonable Buy It Now price. Some people doubted they would sell, but in the end, all of them sold! Sure, I only ended up profiting $2 from them, but it’s still something. One of them sold for $0.99 + shipping (pathetic – it was also brand new) but I still got an extra buck or two because I had set the shipping price a little high.

I wasn’t really doing it for money, but it was an interesting experiment and makes me think of what other junk I can sell on eBay.

I’m just joking. The strange and interesting part that makes me happy is that I didn’t just dump the DVDs at the charity store, but was able to find people who really, actually wanted them.

Now

I am going to dispose of the more personal dance and music concert DVDs. But I still have one remaining – a boxset of the entire series of Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em, which I still really love. The show doesn’t get old and I can’t find the whole series online anywhere. I don’t think I can copy them effectively, either. So it’ll just have to be something I hold onto!