As a Plex user I like to have ALL of my collections of movies, TV shows and music videos available all the time wherever I am on any device. So I looked to see how many movies I have and discovered it had grown to 7800+. So without wanting to start a competition of mine’s bigger than yours I wondered what other hoarders and multiple hard drive addicts (I know there are plenty of those here) have and what ‘drives’ them to gather so much stuff they can never hope to watch even if they lived multiple lifetimes. For me it’s the video store experience, you know when you used to go in and pick out what you were going to watch for the weekend? But without the popcorn.
How Big Is Your Movie Collection?
MontyMacaw on 17/10/2021 - 13:26
Last edited 17/10/2021 - 13:27
Last edited 17/10/2021 - 13:27
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pretty much, NBN plus netflix, disney, Amazon prime
That doesn't include everything (unless you count less legal alternatives)
The issue with those subscription services is that sometimes their libraries rotate out, and then for some shows, you can only watch the latest season. Which is frustrating if you only found out about a series later on and cant legally watch the first couple seasons anywhere. Thats why Australians still pirate.
Even with all the streaming services, you lucky to have access to 1% of available films
The paradox: do you have zero movies or all the movies?
You will own nothing and be happy
Mostly only true if the cost of getting what you want is significantly less than the cost of ownership.
Download , watch , delete (repeat). Maybe 50 movies and 20 Tv show series as buffer.
“Delete”? What is this word?
That was the good old days on Gmail. Never had to delete any emails. Now I'm constantly getting a banner at the top of my email saying I've reach 96%
Click 'Sign out' then 'Create Account'. You're welcome ;-)
I occasionally go through and search for bulk stuff to delete - "newsletter", "tracking", whatever. Doesn't take long to delete a few thousand useless messages.
Google don't want you to delete, they rather want you to buy more storage.
I just went and counted, I have 6 movies in dvd format and 3 digital movies in my google play account.
Ron Brierley had a collection that he downloaded from the internet freely, and thought they were all perfectly okay.
Gross.
I have approx. 3000 movies in my collection.
Recently upgraded from an old xeon on windows with a few crap old drives in a storage pool to 5950x, 128GB RAM, GTX1070 for transcoding, 4TB of NVMe and 8x 12TB pool with parity on UnRaid. Supppper happy with OS change. All containerized and runs super super nice.
Currently got 2500 movies and 390 shows with 22,000 individual episodes.
Next up is a chassis change to accommodate more drives!
Whoa, that is one extremely powerful server! I store my media on individual disk without parity as I can redownload them.
It's massively overkill but I run a selection of VMs and games servers for friends too. Figured do it once do it right.. I guess? lol
Did you go for ECC ram with that?
Lol how much you spend on that ? I only got a raspberry pi + 8Tb hd connected to Shield.
If that's all you need man then no point pissing away cash. I genuinely don't remember the total price. It's a little messy because I bought the cpu for my desktop then decided it was ultimately a waste so I "downgraded" to a 5900X and gave the 5950X to the server.
But I used a combination of PCPartPicker and OzBargain for nearly everything and saved a pretty penny. All the drives are shucked WD Elements because, well, it's all replaceable media and I have parity now so no real concern.
All the drives are shucked WD Elements because, well, it's all replaceable media and I have parity now so no real concern.
No real concern until you discover they were all from the same dodgy batch and you have multiple failures in quick succession. Parity won't count for (profanity) if you have enough failures.
https://perfectmediaserver.com/hardware/hdd-purchase-methodo…
- Try to only purchase one drive per retailer per 3-6 months
- Distribute makes, models and manufacturers where possible and rational
Why have a massive collection? As per boomramada above…
- Download
- Watch
- Delete
- Repeat if so desired
Missus and kids can't do that. Gotta have it all on hand. Great for friends and family too.
Why have a massive collection?
I can only really speak for myself, but it's really for the sake of collecting and wanting to take charge of my viewing experience. I
There are other benefits:
- having your own curated selection of movies and TV shows you love without the clutter of other things,
- your own stuff won't disappear due to studio disputes or other reasons (eg. Disney+ removed 'Stark Raving Dad' from The Simpsons)
- you can store content at a higher quality than streaming services offer
- store custom edits of films like the Star Wars 4K77 project or specific film edits that are not widely available
- not needing to subscribe to a streaming service to keep watching specific series you like to watch now and thenStorage is cheap, whole reason I don't just stream is so I can have a reliable offline copy. Keeping local file isnt a bug, it's a feature.
It's not about the actual movies. It's about collecting and curating your collection.
Channel BT has all the movies I want.
Nice try Hollywood……
HDD failure years ago.. so just sticking to streaming
The thing with streaming is that they don't always have old movies or the movie you want to watch. You need to subscribe to multiple services to hedge your bets as to which streaming service will get which movie. Some are also exclusive to specific streaming services.
Very true.. I supplement with telstra box office but collecting is half the fun :)
And due to licensing agreements music can change and people like George Lucas will de-master their movies..
I had that happen twice. Now I have a backup as well as the one I use.
Get a Synology NAS and use Synology RAID, when a HDD fails everything still works and data is kept, just make sure to replace that drive before another one dies.
Also never hurts to get two NAS's and have the data replicating.Will add that it doesnt have to be a Synology, but I use them at work and swear by them.
We got rid of all the DVDs. None looked rare or unavailable via online services, so kept none.
When we ditched cds there were 20 or so (out of a few hundred) from indie bands that were not easily available online, so I both ripped them and kept the disc.I guess if your tastes are more niche there will be lots of things it is sensible to keep a copy of.
Even if they aren't especially offbeat there are reasons to keep copies of broadcast stuff if you ever want to re-watch a footy game or cricket match in full, or plenty of shows that won't be made available for sale in full, like sketch comedy shows or similar.2351 Movies
287 TV shows, 20496 EpisodesThis is only for myself personally no one else uses it, i only download what interests me.
There are things ive watched on netflix and never bothered to download.Damn that must be a full time job looking for stuff to add. My users request content through Ombi and they all do their own request.management. I haven't added content myself in years… Provide storage and they take care of it lol
you have a server and don't add things you want to watch? whats the point then?
Takes literally 20 seconds to open NZB360 or Sonarr/Radarr and add something for me.
Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant my users just request everything… There's never been a time where I wanted to watch something that someone else hadn't already requested.
That and I watch maybe an hour of "TV" a week. The family on the other hand… TVs always on.
@Godbotly: That's insane to have a server and rarely watch anything especially with those specs.
How many users? those specs seem massively overkill for how little storage you have.
@Axelstrife: Yeah I said in the specs post it's massively overkill but I do use it to run multiple VMs and games servers for friends. So whilst it is on the high end it does get used often and sometimes fairly heavily.
I currently have about 40 unique user accounts and average 8-12 concurrent streams most nights.
I just wish the stupid ISPs in this country weren't against symmetrical connections.
Nice try DMCA.
7800 movies? How big is your HDD? I used to hoard movies but then I never watched any of them, now I prefer streaming movies as nowadays not many movies are actually worth downloading.. I probably have 1-200 movies in my PLEX library for movies I like to watch often in 4K.
I have multiple cheap hard drives with backups for every one. Plex manages them for me. Total storage is about 50tb
True, not many nowadays are worth downloading
I collect movies from all eras. Some are over 100 years old. I particularly like to watch movies that are referenced in everyday culture as this is often a way to find absolute gems that I have often never even heard of. Most of them stand up still today. As a rule of thumb I only add movies that rate above 6 on IMDB and 7 for classics.
Only 1. Watch it every year at xmas. Die Hard.
Die hard 2 is the real Xmas movie :)
Followed by national lampoons Christmas vacation.
Yippee-Ki-Yay!
I was just blousing…browsing….
Home alone???
1000~ movies, ~100 shows on my trusty HP N40L. Still alive and kicking. She's on 24/7. At least 5 years old. Got her from OzB for $199. Got to be a OZB Hall of Famer bargain.
Edit. 1080p content.
Only about 500.
Streaming just isnt trusthworthy, there are so many good movies you just cant get. Think of things like The Castle which are absolute classics but you've basically got to pirate them. It would be a cultural loss if certain movies weren't easily widely available.
I only have Dallas Buyers Club. It attracts a lot of interest. Have not watched it though. Doesn't stop my lawyer from sending me defence invoices.
😂😂😂
I stream. Physical DVDs and most CDs and vinyls are worthless so I don't keep them.
Video games on the other hand are a different story.
Except as archive copies perhaps.
"vinyls are worthless"
Please explain that to the people on FB marketplace trying to sell their beaten up copies of Fleetwood Mac for $40+
There is a 'most' before the word vinyl in my comment.
the key word is "trying" to sell
Total number of movies saved on a digital device? zero.
I had 700 full movies on DVD. Transcoded them all onto 4TB HDD
Discovered the Fetch TV Box. It has a menu where it shows you all the movies coming up on all the free to air stations in the coming 2 to 3 weeks. I spend half an hour say every fortnight looking through these and setting movies to record automatically when their time arrives. I usually have a list of around 100 movies and shows to watch at any one time. Watch, delete, something else fills its space. Constantly have a huge dynamic choice of entertainment.
This coupled with a Netflix sub and I have more entertainment than I ever need. Still toying with the idea of ditching the Netflix sub. Don't really need it.
Same with Music. Had a huge CD collection. Transcoded it to HDD. Then found the Deezer music streaming service and bought some Sonos speakers and now my music selection is over 30 million. And I can take it all with me, so to speak, wherever I have my smartphone or laptop.
Consequently threw out ALL my DVD's and CD's, deleted ALL my transcoded duplicates (spent countless hours and effort digitizing my collections initially)
Moved on, embraced technology, choice and freedom. So happy that I did.
I still, 4 years on, feel the relief of ditching all that stuff.what did you use to transcode them? was considering doing the same with my 300 plus dvds, but storage cost outweight the actuall dvd values, unless there was a way of reducing them to a smaller file sizes.
I used quite a few programs over the years.
The most recent ones I used in early 2020 with good success was WinX DVD Ripper Platinum (found a license somewhere) and MakeMKV, which from memory gave good options for reducing the file size. Was very happy with these easy to use programs and their good transcoding options.
Earlier one was Freemake which was very easy to use and gave good options also, but if it is still going, look at forum reviews of it as there became some concerns of it installing unwanted software upon installation, and the free version put a freemake splash screen at either the start or end or both (can't remember) of your movie. Getting the paid version probably solves this. It was a great little program for its day.
Also take a look at Handbrake. It had everything you will ever need transcoding wise, but it is a steep learning curve.
Things change quickly in this techy software world so do your own research, but the first 2 I mentioned, if still supported, or even if not, should get you up and running.
Mine is now evolving in to 4K HD….
This is the real answer, I'm going through and updating those old 700MB DIVX rips to at least blue ray source quality MKV, and special ones get the 4K version. 10,000+ movies are great but are they actually named and curated correctly.
Is it a good idea showing off how many movies you have in your digital collection?
I'm curious are there any copyright police on this forum…..
No cops are getting paid to chase around someone who's downloaded a few movies. They spend their time on the uploaders. It's the same thing with drugs, rarely do they go for users, they go for dealers.
that is what you think
Too busy policing covid rules. Oh hang on, no they aren't.
I have over 9000 pirated movies on the server in each of my five private jets, along with kilograms of cocaine and some nuclear missiles.
I had more than 600 movies a few years back, but mostly all donated / deleted now, streaming services are far more convenient.
as big is stremio !
12TB of porn
Thank you for your honesty.
…but its only animal porn
~3000, I stopped adding to it a couple of years ago (and even deleted a heap) except in cases where I want a very hidef copy or if it is not available on my paid streaming services. bascially streaming usually good enough for me now.
I'm not a streamer or mass downloader (serious, lol) but at least downloaded or physical copies can't be "cancelled" or "remastered George Lucas style" or otherwise on a whim.
About 900. 4x2TB in Raid 5 on my 10+ year old HP Microserver (from OzB!).
7800 is a lot!
Just over 1000. I add to IMDB watchlist and it auto-downloads with Radarr. Useful for movies that are older than 10 years and non-mainstream. Many TV shows and movies aren't available on Netflix, Prime, Stan etc. Plus all the searching just to find it is a hassle. I stream TV via Stremio and have downloaded TV shows I'll rewatch i.e. Simpsons, Avatar and David Attenborough.
Streaming Simpsons can be particularly bad because many are using the 16:9 format, cutting off the bottom and top portions of the screen.185 movies, life is too short to watch a movie 2 times. So I keep deleting the old ones. I do have access to a friend's library that has a lot, lot more.
I personally have never 'paid' to own a movie in my life
I have a reasonably large 4K disk collection but never watch them as I have a lossless rip of each one on my Plex server. Probably near to 300 films now averaging about 50-60GB per film in file size.
I have about 1000 I keep. 27tb all ultra HD lossless object surround.
I have approx. 810 dvds / boxsets. Includes TV, Concerts and Movies.
How do you keep track of your collections? I use DVD profiler, but it hasn't been updated in a quite a while. Is there any other software that does a similar thing?
used to in past but realised no point. but now i only purchase what i really like digitally and everything else is itunes rental, prime, atv+
several thousands movies and a few hundred series, totalling a few dozen terabytes
this includes the top 250 highest rated on imdb which im slowly going through, probably wont ever watch even half of the movies/series downloaded thoughLatest count on my plex server : 3746 movies, 1288 TV shows, 35614 episodes, 30Tb of usable storage. Plus I'm flying by the seat of the my pants with no RAID.. Only had to clone 2 failing drives in the last 6 years. HDD Sentinel is very good at predicting failures early. Also had a ransomware attack in Nov 2018 where I lost everything except one of my movie drives. Took another 12months to build it back up again. I would love to stream but living rural limits my options. Some people collect stamps, I collect media. Having been using Plex since about 2008 I think. Happy collecting everyone.
Ah, the poor connection. That was us too until a few months ago. Now with FTTP, we can stream to our own devices plus share with family and friends. The missus and I have family on other continents and I'm happily amazed it works at all. We've got 8TB of media.
Seems like a waste of time now having copies. I used to, but now I’d rather stream 4K or whatever the highest copy available on the streaming service. I still use plex for some content, I just don’t keep it after I’ve watched it anymore. If I can’t find the movie I want on the multitude of steaming services I have, I just dl a copy which takes a few minutes these days.
I haven't got the courage to count! But I'm mainly interested in full quality BD and UHD. 150" 4K projector setup kinda necessitates that. But if I'm just looking to watch something stupid and forget it, streaming is fine. My tastes are a little off-beat, however, and I often find the choices available via streaming underwhelming.
I have curated a films list for myself. Most are classics or highly acclaimed films. Watch, download, delete. I would guess 150-200 sitting there.
My RP2 has only 32gb. Yeah like many download, stream and delete.
Sounds like digital hoarding is a thing.
The concept is nice and it appeals to me but I am not getting in trouble with the po po just so I can have a "video strore experience". I hope you guys bragging are posting behind a VPN……..
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The internet