So when did you started collecting DVDs and why?

I myself am very interested in movies, acting and everything that involves around a movie.
My older brother used to buy movies, but he did not have any system.
He noticed that some DVDs were lost when it was too late.  That bothered me.

I started buying movies when I was 13-14 years old. I thought that instead of renting why not just buy one and have it. Hehe. (Even though I don't know where some of them are. Irritates me, seriously. Again, my brother's fault  ) That's when my journey started

And I was an exchange student in England for 2 weeks in January 2007 and one of the other student's host family had a wall full of DVDs! And I seriously fell in love with the wall! 

So.. Now you guys! :D

(I'm sorry if similar thread has been created before..)

Interesting thread...

My love of movies started from when I was very young, I remember sitting down with my Dad and brother at Christmas time and circling all the movies we wanted to see in the Radio Times. He'd then tape them onto blank cassettes and me and my brother would watch them over and over agan. Our close knit circle of films included Batman, Superman 2, Willow, Labyrinth, as well as the usual offerings from Disney, which my mum used to buy for us as 'presents' - but they were really for her!

I remember going to the Cinema alot when I was young aswell, and it was always the done thing at Birthday time, or school holidays etc. I used to go with my Mum and my brother (my Dad hates films and cinemas), and as I got older I went with friends, girlfriends etc.

As I was growing up, along with the small repeatedly watched cache of movies I also had a fair few video cassettes that I kept up until about 2002 which is when I started seriously collecting DVD's.

Before 2002 I used to get the odd few DVDs, mainly as gifts but they were expensive compared to videos and my film knowledge at the time was pretty poor. I busied myself mainly in watching the 50 or so movies I had on video or had recorded off TV (we had Sky at the time too, so my choices were slightly broadend) My 'usual suspects' at this time were James Bond films, Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Batman (still!), along with some Hollywood blockbusters of the time.

My first purchase of a movie on DVD was probably just after I bought my first PS2. I had no DVD player at the time and knew no-one else who did. If I remember correctly they were retailing in the region of £600 ($1200) at the time, and were seen as a luxury item (as seen in One Night at McCool's  )

The first point that I considered myself a collector, was when I started University in 2002. One of my friends was studying Film with Drama, and he had (what I thought) a fairly impressive collection (around 300 DVDs). At this time I was still watching my 30 or so DVD's on my PS2 linked up to a Panasonic 14" TV Video combi. I'd always loved film, but it had never really occured to me to start collecting until I met him. We, along with other friends used to frequent the local Odeon Cinema, sometimes four or five times a week. During my uni days (2002-2005) I must have seen almost every new film that was released at the Cinema in the UK. As my film taste matured, I started buying movies fairly rapidly. Taking advantage of the local HMV, Virgin, and Silverscreen (the latter, now alas out of business) I managed to amass a fairly good collection of about 500 DVDs, as well as a Sony DVD Home Cinema System when I left University.

While at University, I was lucky enough to be in close proximity to London. This meant I was able to frequent UCI cinemas and The Prince of Wales Theatre, as well as a very expensive trip to the Odeon in Leceister Square (as I sat in my padded high backed chair, sipping JD and coke watching Harry Potter I felt a certain serene smugness come over me... ). I was lucky enough to be able to see a couple of Miike films at UCI and Prince of Wales such as Gozu. I also got to see Battle Royale II: Requiem, and other Asian cinema (A Tale of Two Sisters, Phone...)

Nowadays, I consider myself to be a fully fledged DVD nut. Almost every spare bit of cash I have goes on DVDs, and now I try and buy the most collectable version of a newly released movie. For instance if a title gets re-released as a special edition or anniversary edition and I already own it, I'll still buy it, I also like my steel tins, my exclusive slip covers, and my big box imported releases. Now, I find it a struggle when in a store such as HMV to actually find anything that I wish to buy. My tastes have become pretty bizarre (hence my screen name!), and now I mainly purchase online from the US, Canada, The Caiman Islands, Austria and Germany. Now, rapidly approaching the 800 DVD mark, there are still plenty (around 250 titles) that I currently wish to purchase, and with new releases that figure could easily double or triple over the next few years.... I need to start looking for a bigger house.... 

I'm glad to see that we've all got similar tastes - Dark Crystal, Willow, etc.

My bug started the same from VHS, the First DVD I saw was Bug's Life, the quality was so much better that my wife persuaded me that we had to buy a DVD Player, thankfully it came with 3 "Free" DVDs, Perfect Storm, Gossip and a Friends DVD.

Since then things have only got better, I've always made sure I've had an all region DVD Player as I've all my UK DVDs from when we lived in the UK and all our region 1 DVDs now we live in Canada.

I've just under 1000 though enough on my wish list to take it well over 1000.....

Well, my love for movies came in (IIRC) 1988 when a TV movie was being filmed in my small town. The movie, about the perils of taking steroids (how topical today), was called "Finish Line" and starred James Brolin, Josh Brolin and then unknown Mariska Hargitay (now on Law & Order: SVU). Anyway, my mom worked at a theater they were filming a scene at and my dad was working "crowd control". So, while they were filming me and my sister sat across the street in an empty lot watching the scene unfold.

Even though this was a small production, I was in awe of the process, the big lights, etc. So I think that's where my love for movies began. My love and obsession for DVDs started in 1998 (oddly enough, 10 years later) when we got our first DVD player. Not too much later a Future Shop in the area was closing down and their DVD supplies were on clearance. I got a ton of DVDs (at the low price of probably around $15 each, if not more, and on clearance, lol). And it's only grown since and moved on to Blu-rays as well...

Haven't you heard...don't look directly at a laser beam.  

Skip

I liked movies my whole life..

Since I live in Austria I had to live with dubbed movies also most of my life. At the age of 16 I discovered that movies in English sound a lot better. So I got myself a Laserdisc Player. From that time on I spent all my money on US Laserdiscs. Also I found an English Videostore where I could rent and copy the movies I wasn't willing to buy on Laserdisc.
My first Contact with DVD was when I opened my own company to sell imported Laserdiscs. Then DVD came and I was doing that aswell. I also had a guy make the DVD Players I sold Codefree. Because back when I did that there weren't any German DVD's out yet.. So it was a pretty good market niche..
then finally this February I decided to join the HD Revolution and got a HD-DVD Player. By that time it was already dying but I didn't care. I got a lot of great movies for very cheap.. Then finally this may I got a Blu Ray Player and an LCD TV..  Now I mostly watch HD Titles.. Except for when I am trying to go to sleep. I always go to sleep to simpsons episodes..

Quoting Rage-2005:

Quote:
Is it normal that people from Austria & Germany prefer the original soundtrack than the dubbed one? I allways thought that the dubbed was the popular choice.

The general audience doesn't know better than prefer the dubbed versions. Also a majority isn't able to watch english without german subtitles. But within the dvd community I wouldn't be surprised if a majority prefers the originals (I always watch the original, even with asian or african movies). In fact it's possibly one of the major reasons for buying DVDs. It's the only way to watch the originals in Germany.

Quoting Mithi:

Quote:
[...]
Seriously  I think the normal german/austrian buyer isn't present in an english spoken forum nor does he use DVD Profiler.

Thanks for your confirmation that I'm not normal!