DVD storage in a recess.

valve90210 · 2 Feb 2007 at 11:02

Not quite sure if this is the best place to put this or not but it seemed the most relevant…

I have just recently moved into a flat and could do with some thoughts on DVD storage.

In the lounge there is a recess in one of the corners which is 50cm x 50cm. It is behind where the TV sits, and is accessible thus I decided it would be great for storing my DVD’s there.

At present there is an old book case which is actually too narrow but was what I was using for storage in my previous home. The recess is useable from floor to ceiling, however, it is virtually full already. My problem is, how do I maximise the space without making it hard to browse the dvds?

My first thought was to put shelving in from top to bottom across the full width, but this really isn’t going to help as I have already got dvd’s stacked all the way up the side of the existing shelving unit.

My second thought was double depth shelves so I could put 2 upright layers of dvds on each shelf.. but of course I wouldn’t be able to see any of the back layer which would become more and more annoying as my collection grows.

My third thought was double depth sliding shelves, with the dvd’s sitting spine upwards, this would mean I’d have to pull out each shelf one at a time see what was on each, but when I did so I would be able to see all the dvds on that shelf. Then I realised there was a huge draw back to this. It would be fine up to about chest height, but anything higher and I wouldn’t be able to see any of the dvds’ without standing on steps or something. This would be very impractical.

My other thought was to have two shelving units, one on each side of the recess but with it only being 50 cm wide, and as each set of shelves would need to be about 15cm deep, that would only give me about 20 cm between the two, which would make it very hard to either look at the dvd’s or get to the ones near the back.

Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts or examples of other ideas to maximise the storage space???

Any and all ideas much appreciated!!!

Thanks

Valve

pinkaardvark · 2 Feb 2007 at 11:58

Copy all the DVD's to Hard Disc and then put them all in box under the bed.

valve90210 · 2 Feb 2007 at 12:12

Firstly, that would take months to do, secondly, I'd much rather have them about cos my dvd player is far better at playback than my computer. Thirdly I wouldn't have room under the bed for them all

(

I have to admit, it would be a great solution really, but not the route I want to go down really. That said, it's exactly the route I've taken for all my cd's!!!

Valve

pinkaardvark · 2 Feb 2007 at 20:20

Can't really get better play back than a PC though with the right software. You could always just rip them as you need so you don't have to face the task of doing them all at once.

zealot · 3 Feb 2007 at 15:58

If you do have double depth storage why don't you put your discs in some kind of data base so you know what discs you have and what shelfs they are on, ipaq or some other pd device would be ideal.

valve90210 · 5 Feb 2007 at 09:19

zealot said:
If you do have double depth storage why don't you put your discs in some kind of data base so you know what discs you have and what shelfs they are on, ipaq or some other pd device would be ideal.

That does seem like it's going to be the best solution, will have to have a look at what software there is about, would be quite handy though would mean I'd have to put things back in the right place!!! ;o)

Valve

a1ex2001 · 5 Feb 2007 at 09:35

Have you thought about putting most of the DVD's in the recess and then putting the others somewhere else? You could put the ones you watch less often in a different place?

In my experience double depth shelves and database systems just mean you forget what you have, it's much easier to browse when you can see them all!

Hard drive rip would be the ideal solution but you going to need some pretty sizeable storage given the number of DVD's you appear to have!

pinkaardvark · 5 Feb 2007 at 10:38

Why don't you just take all the discs out of cases and put them in some large soft wallets with a good index.

Anchundan · 5 Feb 2007 at 11:20

I've done that - I have over 200 (Movie) DVD's, and have bought 2 wallets, each contain 120 spaces.

I've also printed out the names and descriptions (copied from IMDB.com) so I know what they're about without the boxes.

If you copy the DVD's to hard disk, how much space will one DVD take up on the HDD?

fini · 5 Feb 2007 at 11:30

AlfCheesey said:
If you copy the DVD's to hard disk, how much space will one DVD take up on the HDD?

I usually use dvdshrink to take them down to ~ 4.5 gig (keeping menus etc) so I can burn them to disk again if I can't find where I've put it.

You can get a lot lower than that though if you don't mind not having the menus and fancy spending the extra time playing around with things like autogk. Dvdshrink is lightning fast though ( and if used in conjunction with ripit4me can rip anything)

fini

valve90210 · 5 Feb 2007 at 11:56

a1ex2001 said:
Have you thought about putting most of the DVD's in the recess and then putting the others somewhere else? You could put the ones you watch less often in a different place?

In my experience double depth shelves and database systems just mean you forget what you have, it's much easier to browse when you can see them all!

Hard drive rip would be the ideal solution but you going to need some pretty sizeable storage given the number of DVD's you appear to have!

I had thought about that briefly, though there aren't too many other places they could be stored. As you mention, double depth shelves and a database could well end up with me forgetting what I've got, which is exactly why I wanted to avoid it, but having thought about it so much, I just can't think of another way to maximise the space, as sadly it's ot quite a big enough area to allow opening dor typ things or such like.

Currently at last count, which was nearly a year ago I had about 350 dvds and I've bought quite a number since then, so I'm probably getting on for 400 hundred now.

Currently they all just about fit in the space, so for the time being double shelves would not be a problem, it'd only really be bad when my collection grows even more and all the shelves are doubled up, but I'd think that may well take a while, So I guess it wouldn't be too bad.

HDD storage would be great but I'd need a vast amount of storage and I really wouldn't fancy the job of ripping them all either, especially as I 've done that with all my 300 or so CDs...y god that was a boring few days!!!

Valve

a1ex2001 · 6 Feb 2007 at 11:41

valve90210 said:
HDD storage would be great but I'd need a vast amount of storage and I really wouldn't fancy the job of ripping them all either, especially as I 've done that with all my 300 or so CDs...y god that was a boring few days!!!

I know what you mean I got bored ripping 150ish CD's especially when I had to redo them 6 months latter as I'd made the mistake of pulling them to MP3 when I should have gone lossless in the firstplace!

I wouldn't fancy ripping 400 Odd DVD's allthough if you just did it on the basis of which you watch most it wouldn't be to bad. Allthough you'd have to start another thread about where to put a server!

lloydsj · 6 Feb 2007 at 12:08

Going back to the original question and by-passing the archiving to PC option... why don't you just double depth your favourite dvd's on the lower shelves, and then get some storage boxes for the higher shelves that you can lift down (for your less-used dvd's)? Easy, manageable, cheap :rolleyes: