Chris Robinson Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 For months I've been browsing the internet looking for a DVD storage solution that fits my cabinet and maximizes the use of space. I have a cabinet above my left front Cornwall (see link to HT below for picture) and it's 27" wide and 22" deep. Above the receiver, I have a shelf that holds all the DVD's, and they're lined up left and right like a shelf full of books, and then stacked up and down in piles in front of those. In short, it's a mess. What would do really well -- and one that I can't find -- is a "lazy Susan" type of carousel that you could stand the DVD's on vertically, and just spin it around to pull a DVD. Or perhaps there's a better rectagular carousel ... or an innovative storage solution. Anybody seen anything out there that might work here? HELP! _______________________________ Music Hall MMF-7 Turntable w/ Goldring Eroica H MC Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CDP with 24 bit/192 KHz Upsampling Wright Sound WPP-100C Phono Stage JF Lessard Pantheon 6SN7 SRPP Preamp w/ RCA 5R4GY & Sylvania 6SN7 JF Lessard Horus Parafeed Cobalt 2A3 Monoblocks w/ Tung Sol 5687 & AVVT 2A3 1976 KCBR Klipschorns with ALK Crossovers Gear Online: Two Channel & Home Theater Systems Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandi Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 How about the Sony 400 disc DVD changer? That is what is on my Christmas list, which I will probably have to purchase for myself after Christmas. I have seen a vertical revolving DVD holder at BB I believe. I cannot remember how many it will hold. As the DVDs come across the top they spread out enough to see the whole case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted December 19, 2004 Author Share Posted December 19, 2004 Great idea about the Sony. Never really thought about that! I'll be over near BB today. I'll drop in and have a look! Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted December 19, 2004 Author Share Posted December 19, 2004 Cruised the BB website and came up dry, unfortunately. Looked at the Sony unit, then the Pioneer units ... Problem is ... I really like my Philips DVD963SA. Tough to beat. Stumbled across a website where a guy had started a thread looking to design something just what I'm looking for ... but his site crashed. I'll keep looking. Any more ideas are welcomed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HatTrick66 Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 One idea I have been kickin' around in my head but have yet to pull the trigger on is getting rid of the DVD boxes all together and going with a big CD album type storage unit. In addition to the WAF and space saving feature of not having a big storage unit standing around, the album would also: 1. Give me the opportunity to leaf through my collection from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy. 2. The ability to hand the album to a guest for their pick of the movie of the night. 3. Allow said guest to pick a few "favorite parts" of movies during that always fun HT demo. One concern I have is the loss of the box "art," but it's not like I would throw it away. Just put in storage out of sight. What do you guys think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunt Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 They do make dvd albums like you are considering. I have a lot of "kid" movies and have put all of them in the 3-ring binders for dvds. The kids shuffle through them (and never put them back after watching a movie) and it works great. It also stores the card with the movie picture/name. Usually there is an inside card (with chapters) or you can slide out the front cover and store it with the catalogue. I have done this with 3 categories - "kids", "comedies" and "crummy" (those that I don't want to ditch but are pretty lousy movies). This leaves me with more room to display the better movies and those collector tins like Band of Brothers. Right now, I am having a custom cabinet built with a design that I came up with. Just simple shelves with pull-out pockets that will hold my dvds sideways. Like a magazine organizer, sitting on a shelf sideways. Hard to explain, but I think it will work out ok. Good luck and experiment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 Changers are definitly cool. I just got the Kenwood changer system with their Entre control unit. The Entre is really slick, you put a new DVD (or CD) in the changer and it automatically looks it's title up on the internet and downloads cover art for it and organizes your collection by music/movies then by genre. You can then browse your collection via the gui on your TV and select whatever you want to watch/listen to and it does the rest. It can control up to 3 Kenwood changers which is about 1200 DVD or CDs worth. The Entre also does internet radio and can be a MP3 jukebox as well. I've always avoided changers in the past because I didn't want to deal with cataloging what I put into them. That Entre made that very easy as it recognized around 270 of the 300ish movies I put into the changer. For the unknowns you can tell it the title of the movie and it will relook the movie up online based on that. I'm running its video to my theater as well as to my living room TV with IR control from either place. That gives either location access to my collection without having to go downstairs and find the movie and load it up. If you are looking for more traditional storage I used office bookshelfs from Staples. Each shelf is tall enough and deep enough so you can stagger two rows of DVDs in them. I just built a little riser with 2x4s for the back row of DVDs on each shelf. You can probably fit on the order of 500 or so DVDs in one of these bookshelves. They cost around $90 at Staples. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Shmoe Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 Eeuuu, I just cringe hearing the DVD album storage idea. May be just me but I think you would end up just getting your DVD's all scratched up eventually. At least that's what has happened with cd's that I keep in a album. Another Idea that might suit you, buy some of those mini size jewel cases, I think I bought 100 of them for like 9-10 bucks. They still would require shelf space but they are only half the size as normal jewel cases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 I put the DVDs in those big CD wallet things and throw the boxes away. I've over 500 DVDs taking up about 18" of shelf space. No scratches, one takes care you see. The big changer thing is a good idea provided you aren't interested in the latest in player technology; HDMI, upscaling and such. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandi Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 Hmm, I like the idea of handliing the DVD or CD only once. How much do you think you would spend on a storage cabinet? Again I would like to do a side by side comparison of the Sony multi changer and a single disc player. If you were to get the changer you would not spend the money on the cabinet and you would only be handling once. If you did a side by side taste test and found there was not much difference in output quality you could sell your stand alone and put that towards the changer. Or purchase a cheaper 300 disc CD changer but use it as storage for your DVDs. You would have to catalog them so you knew where they were. I did this and have a menu on the coffee table and end tables for guests to look through, course it is currently only with my 24 disc changer, but I can go to that spot and eject the disc and put it in my DVD player(I only have music DVDs, no movies). I have thought about doing the same and just getting a 300 disc CD changer which would save me about 200 bucks. But you still handle them more that way. Question for someone,,,,,,,,,,It does not appear to cause problems but does anyone know of any longterm issues for the player or the DVD if someone forgets and trys to play it from the CD player? It does not do anything but you can hear it moving the disc trying to read it. Hmmph, I am suprised someone has not made a storage unit like this. I wonder if you could find a real cheap one on ebay that would not play but could be used solely as a storage unit. I guess I would want to know that I could break into it should it decide to stop ejecting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssh Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 I'd like to see a quality 3-400 disc multiplayer. SSH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 "The big changer thing is a good idea provided you aren't interested in the latest in player technology; HDMI, upscaling and such." My scaler handles all that as no player has enough flexibility for what I'd need it to do anyway. I just feed component to the scaler and it handles the rest. I may look into modifying the changers for a SDI output but I haven't opened one up yet to see if it is possible. The Kenwood system is discontinued at this point so it is a lot less expensive then it used to be. The Entre units go for around $400 now (were $1800) and the changers are either about $400 or $600 depending upon if you want DVD-A and Faroudja video processing onboard. They were originally $1000 and $1800. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 Here are two threads on another forum showing how the Entre works... http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=b0d8152af8cc63ed82ddeaec33e6d7ec&threadid=293583 http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=b0d8152af8cc63ed82ddeaec33e6d7ec&threadid=293564 So you can get an idea on how it catalogs your collection. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyclonecj Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 One option I was looking at is using a multi changer. The Sony is currently on sale for $369 at Circuit city... but only on the web site. It is getting good ratings for it's picture quality, but still has bad ratings for its menu system, so I was waiting for a better unit. I would then use a software program like DVD Lobby It catalogs all of your DVD's & displays them on screen for you to select. There are also programs that you can connect to DVD Lobby to run your changer from the menu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenratboy Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 Yes, it says Sony, but it is followed by an ES: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-9jOeQXUOWOy/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=54500&I=158DVPX777 I love my Sony 300 CD changer. One of the few products I have had that has totally blown me away. I will certainly buy another one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 I might avoid the 'album' type storage. I read in some A/V magazine, perhaps it was PC mag about DVD storage. They are MUCH more fragile than CD's due to info density. Apparently, the 'ring' that the disk outer edge sits in in a standard DVD box is critical to it's storage. Check out a box, this is different from CD where it just hangs by center hole. I have seen in the back of A/V mags a storage solution which uses drawers to hold media, utiliziing the depth that you have available. It would also be a nice way to catagorize your DVD's and Cd.s Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted December 20, 2004 Author Share Posted December 20, 2004 Thanks, guys, for all the input. The Sony 400 CD changer looks pretty sharp, indeed. I especially liked the DVD Lobby Pro. Question, though. Do I need to have a computer installed in my HT system somewhere to run this, i.e., it appears PC based. Stupid question, I know, but I can't see where it installs. I note also that Lobby 3 has a 777ES driver too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Adams Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 Slightly off-topic, but I thought you guys would enjoy the chuckle. Recently I purchased a DVD/CD/VHS storage rack thing for the HT. And like so many of its kind, it must be assembled. So there I am sitting in the floor with the box opened up and my 5 year old daughter walks up and wants to know what I'm doing. I explain that I need to put this rack together and then comment, "Lordy Madison - just look at all these parts I have to put together." Madison reaches over, picks up the instruction sheet, hands it to me and says, "Well just read the instructions and deal with it Dad." I almost split my sides laughing. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 Tom, FELL OUTA MY CHAIR! That's so cute dude! 'deal with it dad' what a classic. Michael- how'd you like the latest pix installment? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted December 20, 2004 Author Share Posted December 20, 2004 Yeah, five year olds are a nice blend of intellectual honesty and "in your face" humor that never gets old. It seems like only a moment later when they're eight and in that totally obnoxious place (think: dad, what's the most annoying sound in the world?) Jack's five like Madison. We spend days on end together and I love him so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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