Collection or Addiction?

As of this post, I have 908 movies in the cloud with 702 in Movies Anywhere locker. I recently came across a post where someone said they had over 1200. I don't feel as bad now about the size of my collection (lol). The question remains should it be considered a collection or addiction. I will give you the history and let you decide. I would love to hear from the readers what you think.

History

I remember building my movie collection back in high school with VHS tapes over 30 years ago. Even back then, I looked for deals and discounts. I remember buying a used copy of Transformers The Movie because the movie was $25 new. That doesn't sound like much now but back then at $3 per hour minimum wage, it was a lot of money.

I had a large VHS collection when DVDs came on the scene. I remember getting my first DVD and only being able to watch in on my computer because we did not have a DVD player for the TV. Over time, that changed and many of the VHS movies were repurchased as DVDs. My son went through two VHS copies of Toy Story before we purchased the movie on DVD.

Not being a "first adopter" of technology, I stayed with DVDs when HD DVDs vs Blu-rays began. Glad I missed that boat since quite a few movies I liked chose the HD DVD path. Once Blu-rays won, I started to pick up Blu-rays as long as they included DVDs and were similar priced because at the time, I only had a PS3 for watching movies. Have you ever tried to watch a movie on a PS3 when you have two children wanting to play there PS3 games? I love my kids so I would let them play. There was always a free TV with DVD player or my computer in the corner of the room if I wanted to watch something.

When digital copies came out, there were several varieties. Being the happy owner of a video iPod, I preferred iTunes digital copies. I had a few movies that would do the Microsoft digital copy (not to be confused with today's Microsoft digital copy). This digital copy saved to the local computer with a "license" for that one computer. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that if you had to reinstall the Windows OS, you would lose the "license".

Fast forward to the birth of the modern digital copies. Back then, you had SD because HDX and UHD was unheard of with our less than 2mbps "high speed" Internet. This looked promising when Ultraviolet came on the scene and offered free digital movies for linking your accounts from Flixster, CinemaNow, and Vudu. I was definitely up for free movies when you have a family of four. At this point, free movies might sound like getting "fix" leaning you towards addiction?

Between free movies and combo packs starting to include digital copies, my digital movie collection started to grow quite quickly. I probably had 30 movies within the first year. Later, I discovered the ability for converting current DVDs to digital through Vudu. At the time, it was a relatively inexpensive option Vudu discounted the conversion to $1 per movie if you did 10 or more at a time. Do the math on that and you will find if you were going to convert 5 movies at $2 each, you might as well look for 5 more and pay the same price. 

During this time, I had close to 400 movies. Granted I did not convert all of them at once but I did do multiple batches of 10 over the course of several years. Eventually, every movie I could convert to digital was converted to digital. I currently have 39 that are unable to be converted because of being owned by Disney or digital copies are not currently available. 

Once converted, I found we typically would not watch the disc versions. Eventually, I found we could sell the discs to used movie stores or through garage sales to easily recoup the money to convert them to digital. Garage sales also became a way to get cheap movies that could be converted to digital as well. My children two hours from home now. My son is in college. My daughter is starting her "adult" life. They both have access to my digital library that I add to with movies we enjoy.

Too Much Of A Good Thing

I will admit that as my collection grew, I started to just look for bargain movies with digital copies. I thought I was good at determining if a movie was good by the trailer or even a two minute sneak peak or trusting the advices of some else. In the end, I have ended up with some movies that I forced myself to watch because I know owned a digital copy forever...or until they replace digital copies with something else. Although I don't have a top ten best movies in my collection, I do have a top ten worst movie purchases in my collection that I forced myself to watch. Ranking is based on release date.

1. The Sum of All Fears - Ben Affleck did not make this a horrible movie. One of the slowest plots on record made this movie hard the watch all the way through.
2. Every Day - Was an interesting trailer about midlife crisis. I ended up not liking storyline and we will leave it at that.
3. Tammy - I will say I liked the end of the movie. The problem I had with this movie is Melissa McCarthy tries to be too over the top and vulgar.
4. You're Not You - I am torn putting this movie on the list as a majority of the movie is very good. I am just not a fan of ending.
5. Unbroken - Like The Sum of All Fears, this movie plot is so slow. It has great acting and a decent story but could have been done in a 90 minute movie.
6. Macbeth - I was looking forward to the Micheal Fassbender Assassin's Creed movie when I found this combo pack on sale for $5. Alas, I had to put on the subtitles to keep up with the Olde English dialogue that was drowned out by the music and effect sounds. In the end, I felt is was a movie that kids would watch after reading the book in high school English class.
7. Shin Godzilla (English language version) - I also have the Japanese language version that I hope is better. It felt like they had at most six people to do the voice overs and some sounded too much alike to distinguish characters talking unless you could see their lips move.
8. Security - With Antonio Banderas and Ben Kingsley, what could go wrong. This movie must have spent all the money on these two actors. The story was good but the location did not feel believable. The script could have used a little more work as well.
9. Goodbye Christopher Robin - If you like Winnie the Pooh or enjoy movies that make you feel good, this movie is the farthest from it. Granted the ending has a happy ending but not enough to save the movie.
10. All The Money In The World - Like Goodbye Christopher Robin, the movie is so bleak. It is hard to imagine that both these movies are based on the actual events. One redeeming quality to this movie is to prove that money does not buy happiness.

Addiction or Collection?

With a typically addiction, only one person gets a quick fix and they will spend money they don't have to get that fix. Collection is something that is done over many years and shared. I will admit there are times I may spend more than I should on digital movies but I still pay my bills. I am interested in your thoughts. Is it an addiction or collection? Thanks.