Storing your DVD/CD/Cases for all of your music and movies

Digital Media
#1

I have a large collection of CDs and DVDs. I bought these before the digital download became the behemoth it is now. The problem is I have several cabinets full of these CDs. They take up a lot of space. Currently, they are not organized nor are they all ripped.

I’ve read several blogs and other websites that suggest you save the inserts and the CDs and discard the jewel cases. Some have suggested you put the CDs into binders some into paper sleeves and boxes some into carousels.

I thought I would solicit the DMS community for ideas and solutions. I plan to rip everything and I plan to do so at the highest possible fidelity but its gonna take some time to rip 1000 or more CDs.

Any recommendations? What have you done that works well? I’d love to keep the inserts and the CDs but discard the jewel cases.

Some have said that if you want to sell then to the likes of Half Price Books or Amazon though that you need the jewel cases. It is a bit of a dilemma.

#2

I bought these on Amazon. I like them but I will warn that they don’t fit in a regular binder. I bough scrapbook/photo albums to put them in. If you use a regular binder they hang out the edge.

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#3

You have 2 things you need to define.

  1. Are you planning on reselling them?
  2. What are you wanting to keep? The data or everything?

I think those 2 questions will help you further define your actions.

#4

I have done this very thing for Audio CDs

  • Sorted into most important titles first
  • Ripped the discs into FLAC format (can convert to others later)
  • Store the discs into binders w/ insert, toss jewel cases

rinse/repeat

Audio for a thousand CDs does not take up that much space. For Video I determine what I’m going to do with the file. For a tablet you can get by with lower resolution and bit rate. For full TV experience you need to leave them full size. They end up about 1-5 gigs in size.

Lots of good ripper converters out there now. I used to use Handbrake but now use Wondershare Video Convertor. Mainly since it is available for both Mac & PC.

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#5

For my audio cds, I put them and whatever paper was in the jewel case in one of those binders. I got one that holds A LOT. A little heavy, but once I have ripped to digital I don’t have to dig in it often.

I got rid of most of the jewel cases, but keep a few in case I wanted to sell some cds, I can just put back in a case. Don’t need a giant stack or to keep ALL of them, just a few has been fine.