Decluttering: CD and DVD discs, cases, artwork

[Momcpa]

We had a bunch of old CDs that we had no reason to keep. Called a number of music/record stores that advertised used records/CDs/amp equipment. Finally found one that said they would buy them, but probably not much money. It was in a town we were going to/thru for something else, so we bagged them up and dropped them off. Made 'Lunch Money' for the entire lot. And that was only if we planned to lunch at Wendy's or McDonald's. Not much, but a little better than nothing AND they are out of our house and out of that storage spot.

 

[John Galt III]

We had a bunch of old CDs that we had no reason to keep. Called a number of music/record stores that advertised used records/CDs/amp equipment. Finally found one that said they would buy them, but probably not much money. It was in a town we were going to/thru for something else, so we bagged them up and dropped them off. Made 'Lunch Money' for the entire lot. And that was only if we planned to lunch at Wendy's or McDonald's. Not much, but a little better than nothing AND they are out of our house and out of that storage spot.

When downsizing my parents' house I asked a used record store if they wanted my parents' records for free, and the answer was no. But... at yard sales, used records go for $1 each. Used VHS movie tapes (yes, they exist) go for 50 cents each. Used DVD movies go for $1 each. Used CD music goes for 50 cents each.

 

[steelyman]

I spent a lot of time in 2018 transferring CDs to iTunes on my iMac, which is backed up to 2 external drives by Time Machine.

I’ve come to appreciate being able to play the library in shuffle mode and have heard a lot of tracks I hadn’t paid attention to before.

For now, I’ll keep the original CDs in their cases/boxes. They don’t take up all that much space when boxed. I have donated some “what were you thinking?” titles to local thrift shops.

Next up are LPs which are much bulkier than CDs. There are quite a few that I re-bought once a CD version appeared. Others are no longer available, either out-of-print or bootlegs. The duplicates (both LP and CD copies) I’ll take the LP versions to local used record shops to unload.

I don’t expect to get much if any cash for the effort but a good return in downsizing and easier relocation/moving in the future.

It’s a time-consuming but worthwhile project, I think.

 

[Qs Laptop]

I ripped my music CDs to FLAC and store those files in 3 places.
Converted the FLAC to MP3 for use in iTunes.
Freecycled the CDs via NextDoor.

This is exactly what I do.

 

[SumDay]

Our local NPR station takes them and has an annual sale. The proceeds go to audio readers and materials for the visually impaired.

Weeding mine out is on my to-do list.

 

[karen1972]

For DVDs, we did Vudu, you put the disc in, it reads it to verify you have a physical copy and then it pulls the digital copy from their own site and adds it to your account for like $1 each.

This was great because we could take my sisters scratched DVDs and if it could just read the tag in the beginning, we got the copy even though you couldn't actually even play the disc.

They allowed us to link accounts so all my sisters and older niece have a merged account where we can see anything anyone buys and I converted everyones DVDs that were worth the $1 to rewatch. Now Auntie can buy 1 copy and everyone gets to watch. The app works across devices and you can download so put some on my Kindle for flights. Its also nice to be able to watch your movies at other peoples houses via just a log in.

The best part of digitizing for us was eliminating the extra furniture and boxes needed to store it and was key to downsizing. We digitized absolutely everything (recipes, books, music, movies, paperwork, pictures).

My friend too the VHS tapes, we sold a bunch of DVDs/CDs at a rummage sale, the rest went to goodwill.

 

[Koolau]

Don't know how to digitize, etc. I took my CDs and DVDs out of the cases and placed them in data envelopes. Storing them in this fashion saves a lot of room. I don't worry about the fact that I no longer have the liner notes/DVD descriptions. If I forget who Jackson Browne is or what E.T. is about, I can look them up on line. YMMV

 

[PatrickA5]

I gave all of my CD's and DVD's to my son and told him to see if he could get anything for them. I think he got maybe $20 total from the local Vintage Stock.

Since then I tried to sell my 200+ albums from the 60's & 70's. I had a couple of guys come over and look them over, but the best offer was $100. Both guys were only interested in albums that were in great condition. Uh, sorry - I actually played my albums when I was a kid. I ended up just giving them to my brother so they could take up room at his house. I was glad to get rid of them.

Next to go is my baseball card collection.

 

[Big_Hitter]

CDs sound better in a CD player, same with vinyl

 

[jimbee]

CDs sound better in a CD player, same with vinyl

How do you play vinyl in a CD player?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[RunningBum]

Plex. It's very much like playing a show or movie on Nexflix. I used MakeMKV to rip all the discs, then play them on a Roku.

Thanks. That looks pretty neat. I need to do more reading to make sure there aren't security issues with what looks like opening up your PC to be a file server.

 

[RunningBum]

For DVDs, we did Vudu, you put the disc in, it reads it to verify you have a physical copy and then it pulls the digital copy from their own site and adds it to your account for like $1 each.

Looks like it's now $2 for BluRay, but $5 for an HD version of a DVD. $2 for SD, but no thanks for that. $5 is a little pricey to me.

 

[W2R]

I don't have hundreds of CDs and DVDs. At one point I had enough to almost (but not quite) fill a shoebox. That's all I ever had.

I don't know if I still have that shoebox, or if I tossed it out when I moved. So that's how much it (doesn't) mean to me.

There are one or two computer programs that I bought on CD, and I know I kept those one or two CDs. They are in a cubbyhole in my desk. For example, my new version of Paint Shop Pro.

 

[pacergal]

Almost all of our CDs, DVDs, blu-ray's, and old VHS tapes went to GoodWill during de cluttering. I kept a few holiday CDs and sentimental LPs from high school, less than 20 in all. Not sure why, the only CD player is in the car now! And I don't have a record player anymore--lol

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

And for my CDs, I ripped them and then put the discs and sometimes the cover insert into a CD binder or wallet, which sits on the top shelf of a closet in case I ever need to re-rip them.

I did something similar. I am not sure how many CDs I acquired through the years, but a while back I took them out of the jewel cases and placed them in a disk envelopes. I took the inserts and rubber banded them together and placed them in two plastic storage containers. Many of the CDs I have are from one-off bands that played small venues, fairs, etc. and aren't available anywhere else and are in grouped together.

I also had over 10,000 albums through the years but I have sold many of those. We have a partially finished room over the garage that I will convert to a listening room one of these days and I look forward to listening to scratches and pops that sounds so very good on old school vinyl.

When I first met my wife, one of my apartment bedrooms was an office/album storage area...which overflowed into the living room. She thought I was a part time music store owner.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Thanks. That looks pretty neat. I need to do more reading to make sure there aren't security issues with what looks like opening up your PC to be a file server.

You can restrict it to your local network, but I very occasionally like to use it remotely to stream my content elsewhere. I think the port forwarding restricts it to video and the Plex admin interface, which can only access the media file folders you specify. And I set up a "CosmicFamily" account just for viewing, with no admin access.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Looks like it's now $2 for BluRay, but $5 for an HD version of a DVD. $2 for SD, but no thanks for that. $5 is a little pricey to me.

It used to be that if you had more than $10 in your cart, they would all be half price, so $1/$2.50. I did as many as I could when they first rolled that out, but now I have stopped because even though I don't have a 4K TV yet, I'm now trying to only buy UHD (4K) content so that I don't regret it later, as a 4K TV is definitely in our future. I've got a handful of SD movies in my collection now from the very early days, and that really bugs me...



Although, it doesn't bug me enough to spend money on that movie again! I'm not quite at the Blow That Dough stage.

 

[TromboneAl]

I built a nice wood rack that could hold 300 CDs....people loved it and offered me money to build one for them. Now once all my CDs are gone I probably can't give it away.

Right. Books are now obsolete in our house, at least. I made this to fit paperbacks perfectly. It's now gone. My Kindle holds more books than it did.

 

[Animorph]

Keep the discs if you want to keep the rips. Otherwise you can't prove it's a legit copy. It's a legally grey area as it is. Though I have thought of doing the VUDU thing, I can't get a unified player for my ripped movies and VUDU streamed movies. I don't want to play "where did I put that movie?".

 

[RunningBum]

Keep the discs if you want to keep the rips. Otherwise you can't prove it's a legit copy. It's a legally grey area as it is.

I was going to mention the legal issue, but the chances of getting caught are very minimal. Legally, I think if you get rid of the physical disk you have to destroy any digital copies. Here's one article I found on it: https://lowendmac.com/2003/mp3-sharing-isnt-piracy-and-it-isnt-legal-either/

Under copyright law, you have a right to make a personal copy of something you own for your own personal use. You don’t have the right to sell or give away the copies, and if you do sell or give away the original you are supposed to destroy any copies you have made since the right to a personal copy goes with the original product.

But unless you start a website to give away limitless copies of media, it's very unlikely they'll come after you. Just the same, I plan to keep my copies. For now, anyway.

I have been making copies of my DVDs as Cosmic laid out. Now I have to decide if I'm going to just do the ones I'm mostly likely to play, which I do have space for, or if I should buy a new external hard drive to store them all. So it might not be free.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I keep all the original discs not so much because of the copyright issue (which is still a potential issue), but because I had two HDDs go bad on my NAS once, and had to re-rip EVERYTHING. I can stick the disc in the desktop and walk away, but it can take months of doing it part-time like that on evenings and weekends (for 4TB of mostly TV shows, a few movies that aren't available to stream, and my music).

 

[steelyman]

I can stick the disc in the desktop and walk away, but it can take months of doing it part-time like that on evenings and weekends (for 4TB of mostly TV shows, a few movies that aren't available to stream, and my music).

This is SO true. I don’t attempt to deal with video backup but I’d hate to have to re-rip hundreds of CDs again. Same thing with photos that are scanned in.

 

[bUU]

We ditched the jewel cases and kept the discs. That eliminated three towers of clutter into a couple of big binders hidden away in a closet.

 

[mountainsoft]

It's funny how things become obsolete silently. For example, without this thread, I wouldn't have realized that I haven't opened this drawer in years:

Yep, same here. I've got two drawers full of CD's on the left hand side of our entertainment center, and another two drawers full of DVD's and Blu-Ray's on the other side. My wife will occasionally grab a CD from the drawer to listen to in her car, but otherwise we never get into those drawers. They're out of sight and we don't need the space for anything else, so they'll probably sit there another ten years.

 

[jollystomper]

I still have lots more vinyl albums and records than CDs. Those records, music CDs, and a few movie DVDs are stored in 3 storage units that also double as seat benches/footrests. I am currently in the process of digitizing the ones I really care about and storing on home servers (home NAS units are so cheap I have 2 for home backup), safe deposit box, and the cloud. I never got into movie DVDs, my few were given to me as gifts. I will probably never get rid of them, it will be up to my survivors to decide what to do with them.