How do you organize your CD/DVD's ?

My planned system is as follows :
1. I will buy a DJ BOX (= 1000 CD/DVD's) with numbered double sleeves (H625mm,W400mm,D205mm) = 45 EURO
2. I will buy my CD/DVD's in spindles, mostly DVD+R 4.7gb 120minutes
3. I will type an alphabetic list of titles with a reference to the sleeve number.
That's it.

No DVD boxes.
No jewelcases.
No labeling of any kind
No furniture to store all these DVD boxes/jewelcases.
Easy to move.

According my calculations this is the CHEAPEST and most SPACE-SAVING solution to store 1000 CD/DVD's.
If I ever have more than 1000 CD/DVD's, I buy a second DJ BOX.
It's a very sober boring solution and certainly not attractive, but I like the movies and music more.

What do you think about this ?

 

You'll have to write some identification on the DVD / CDs themselves, even if it would only be the sleeve number, so don't forget a marker pen.

 

Years ago, I found a CD and DVD indexing program and it has worked very well.

You can search it by content and many other variables. The program is not free but has been well worth the money when I need to find a file that was put on CD or DVD years ago.

It is called WhereIsIt and is located at:

http://www.whereisit-soft.com/

I do not know the author and this is not a commercial. Just a reference to a very good program that is updated regularly but has always worked perfectly.


http://www.whereisit-soft.com/

 

Hello,

I organize DVDs like this:

Pron in plastic boxes separate from others.
Linux distros in plastic boxes separate from others.
Archived backups (files and images) in separate boxes from others.
Movies in cases like yours (only much smaller).
Some other software in very small cases.
Other stuff in mixed boxes/cases.

No labels for DVDs except:

Images, with date.
File backups, with date.

All discs marked with pen, usually general names, like movie name, Linux distro name, or running numbers (like dvd 02, dvd 03 etc).

That's it.

Mrk

 

http://www.mtg.sk/rva/
Cathy (world famous freeware)
An extremly small, very fast and easy to use media cataloging tool. You can use it to index files stored on removable media (CD-ROMs, LS120, Iomega Zip and Jaz disks, or even diskettes), hard disks or net drives, and create searchable catalogs that can be used without having access to original media. Searching capabilities are based on file name, date and size. Additional features include filtering options, search duplicates or singles, customizable date format, etc. Found files can be opened (executed) or deleted directly, if they are present. Drag&drop support. Directory trees, MP3 album/song lists can be printed, disk space usage can be investigated. Single file executable, no install needed.

 

A marking pen is a very good and cheap labeling solution for movies/music, stored on DVD+R/CD+R in my system.
- it allows an immediate and easy VISUAL control : right DVD in the right sleeve, which is the most important advantage.
- DVD+R can be used only one time, so the label doesn't need to be replaced or overwritten.
- it doesn't take much time to write a sleeve number (1 upto 1000).
Thank you !!!

 

I only have about 40 discs in total (and thats going to go down now as a lot of that is redundant on Linux), what do you guys have that requires upto 1000 discs ?!?

 

Hello,
My "funny" collection is at least 300-400 discs. Movies another 300-400. Linux distros, another 100 discs. Backups, cumulative up till now 100-150. Other stuff, at least another 100.
Mrk

 

1000 disks is a lot indeed!

One question ErikAlbert: where do external HD's fit in your considerations?
Not pratical to play music on the car, or there's more to it?

 

Members,
Thanks for the software suggestions, but I'm going to use MS Excel to create a title list of DVD/CD's.
I need only two columns : one for the title and one for the sleeve number and I can still add new columns, if I want to store more data later.
MS Excel has a maximum of 65536 rows and 256 columns.
I will never reach these limits in my lifetime. 65536 DVD/CD's ? Not even 10%.
MS Excel has enough functions to act like a database.

The list has only two important purposes :
1. Do I have the movie already ? Yes or No.
2. In which sleeve is the movie stored.

 

1000 DVD/CD's is indeed too much at this moment, but the difference between prices and DJ BOX sizes aren't big.
A DJ BOX of 510 DVD = 30 EURO and a DJ BOX of 1000 DVD = 45 EURO, not 60 EURO.

I'm not planning to store movies/music on internal or external HARDDISKS, because they are limited, while the storage capacity of DVD is unlimited, you only have to buy new ones.

If I really want a backup of DVD's, I create a second DVD.
Besides that, I don't mind losing a movie, it's annoying, but not a disaster. There are several ways to get them back.

And you can play DVD/CD's on other hardware, which is also an advantage.

 

I can only second Ice_Czar´s suggestion of Cathy. It´s one of the most useful pieces of software ever written.

 

Hi Erik!

I only do listing for movies.Since you are a collector,you may be interested in Ant Movie Catalog (freeware).
http://www.antp.be/software/moviecatalog/

^Don't tell me you can resist the temptation!

Practically i have all my movies listed there and it connects to imdb and downloads plenty of information too.If it's an AVI,you can also drag and drop it and it automatically registers codec,bit rates etc.
At the comment field,i put a number.This number corresponds to one pack of 20 sleeves with DVDs.Each 20-pack is held together with rubber laces and is marked with a label and a number written on the first sleeve.So when i see in Ant Movie Catalog that a movie is in "3",i know that i must take the 20-pack marked 3 and search in there for the correct DVD (of course the movie names are on the DVDs).

That's it.

P.S:There is also another open source program for indexing movies,pretty good too and i *think* has both windows and linux version (works with java) ,but i can't recall its name right now.It's prettier than AMC ,but AMC is slightly more functional.

 

Never use a permanent marker pen that contains a solvent (you can smell them). The solvent can penetrate the disc surface and cause damage to the dye or reflective layers.

 

CReal,
Thanks, but that freeware contains TOO MUCH information.
I need something simple, that doesn't require much writing, reading, time and money.
Only the movie is important to me, not the administration, that's ballast to me and that's why I reduced it to the very bone.

Only three administrative actions are required :
1. Keep an alphabetic list with a reference to the sleeve number to answer two basic questions :
- Do I have the movie already ? Yes or No, to avoid double DVD's with the same movie.
- In which sleeve is the DVD stored ?

2. Write the sleeve number on DVD with a marker pen to avoid filing mistakes.

3. Put the new DVD in the next empty sleeve of the DJ BOX.

 

got a pic of this "DJ Box"?

I think your system is sound for just movie DVDs that take up the whole disc
the other software alternatives really are about indexing the location of and describing the assets within your network\media library. I dont bother indexing my movie DVDs currently, I just stack em by genre and shuffle through a stack when needed, but then Ive less than 200 of em. However trying to determine where a given backup of a picture or project archive is, is different then I use Cathy. Color coded cases are of course handy at least that way Ive got the two "kinds" of DVDs separated.

 

I can't give a picture of the LEOPARD DJ BOX for 1000 CD/DVD.

This is a picture of LEOPARD DJ BOX for 600 CD/DVD
http://www.iwonatec.nl/product_info.php?products_id=1865
My box is just bigger.

My system also works if I have more than one movie on one DVD or one movie spread over more than one DVD.

My DJ BOX costs 45 EURO for 1000 DVD's.
Suppose I put my DVD's in DVD BOXES : 1000 BOXES x 0.13 EURO = 130 EURO.
130 minus 45 EURO = 85 EURO. I can buy almost 3 DJ BOXES for the price of 130 EURO.

 

I use a good ol' fashioned Sharpe for my labelling purposes.

I keep my "Utilities" in a portable cd carrier.
Images and backups are stored in a seperate.
Games/movies are kept in their orginial cases.

I have a CD Labeling Stomper from Fellows I also use.

All other randomly burned disk are sitting in a pile on top of my desk.

 

Thanks for the warning.
I found a CD/DVD-marker, which can be used safely on both sides, but I will use it only on the label-side. (I'm not that crazy).
It's pigmentinkt solved in water and it has a soft round point of 1mm.

 

and while the case is nice and dark, cool is a good idea as well
http://www.manifest-tech.com/media_dvd/dvd_compatibility.htm
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/
(kind of like the bad old days when we refrigerated film )
at least when its archival storage

 

Well, I'm not looking for the IDEAL environment to store DVD/CD's, because that is impossible for a private person, like me. Only companies can afford such an IDEAL environment.
Everything worns out and needs to be replaced some day.

I'm looking for a space-saving, time-saving, practical and cheap solution to store DVD/CD's.
I found one and I didn't see any better alternative in this thread.
Only the DVD/CD marker pen improved my system (suggested by Jooske).
In theory I don't need a marker pen, because the sleeve number is also burned as a label on the CD/DVD, but I can't see it with my eyes, unless I use my computer, which is not very practical.
The written sleeve number on the DVD/CD makes it practical to put the DVD/CD back in the RIGHT sleeve, especially when I have to put several DVD/CD's back into their sleeves.

Writing titles on DVD/CD's is too much work and isn't necessary, when you have an alphabetical list that contains the title and the sleeve number.

Some members suggested softwares to file DVD/CD's.
I have doubts that these softwares are able to produce a list in PURE ALPHANUMERIC order of title.
Spaces and special signs are often a problem in a pure alphanumeric order and if the programmer ignored that problem during the development, I won't have a pure alphanumeric order.

 

How do you organize your CD/DVD's ?

i dont

 

the difference between a rotating backup strategy and an archival strategy
thats not to say a few critical DVDs can't be stored behind the salad dressing

but then the temperature gradient between the ceiling and the floor in many a room can be as great as 5C or better
even greater between an upstairs and a basement, main trick is avoiding sunlight as a direct radiation source for whatever container

to date I loose maybe 1 out of 100 DVDs annually to degradation outside of an ideal environment and employing whatever brand happens to be handy, but luckily since I maintain the "google approach" to data backup, namely multiple locations on multiple computers in addition to hard backups Ive yet to loose any data to DVD degradation