Confessions of a Blu-ray Collector: To Convert or Not to Convert

In the late 2000’s, movie collectors were faced with a new dilemma: how to deal with the collections as the Blu-ray format came into the forefront.  For myself, I entered the world of high definition in 2011.  With the purchase of my new TV and blu-ray player, I was given a free copy of Avatar in 3D and I also went out to buy myself The Matrix on blu.  And so my bluray collection began.

When I began my Blu-ray collection, I pondered which of my DVDs to upgrade.  From now on, any new movies I bought would be blu-ray, that was a given, but what about the movies I already had?  I made the same decision that most of you in this position probably made: I would upgrade only a few films I felt were “worth it” on blu-ray.  You know, movies with lots of stand-out visuals.  Some of the first I converted were movies like Inception, Apocalypse Now, 2001, and other big cinematography masterpieces.

This was an exciting time for me, hearkening back a decade earlier when I bought my new DVD player and began building a collection of movies.  The thrill of finding great movies on blu-ray was exhilarating for a collector, just like the good old days.  Also back again was the anticipation of releases yet to come, including some of my favourites like Jurassic Park and Star Wars.

After a while, I started gathering quite a few blus of movies I deemed worthy of conversion.  But then my idea of what was worthy or not started to expand, as I realized bluray’s potential in the restoration and preservation of older classic films.  Buying Casablanca on blu and seeing what it could do convinced me of this.  And the amazing transfer of North by Northwest only solidified this idea.

Then all of the sudden, movies I never thought I would convert to blu, like comedies or basic dramas, I ended up finding for dirt cheap.  Eventually there came a point when the scales were tipping from more blu-rays to DVDs and I just said “ah screw it.  Lets convert the whole collection.”

So now my collection has been almost entirely converted to blu.  All I have left are 8 DVDs which have yet to be released on blu-ray (or not released in an acceptable package).  So what about all of my fellow collectors out there?  How did you handle the conversion issue?  Have you committed to converting everything, or nothing, or a select few?

Also, what have you done with those you have converted?  For myself, I started off by simply giving my DVDs away to friends and family.  The ones that weren’t taken, I would either trade in at best buy for their periodic trade-in deals or sell them for a buck a piece at the local video store.

Then there’s Television.  Well, that’s a whole different ball game.

I have not converted any of my TV box sets to bluray.  I have bought shows I did not yet own on DVD, like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, but haven’t upgraded any existing shows to blu.  I haven’t yet made that commitment for a number of reasons.  The first is cost.  I would love to have Lost on Blu-ray, but its simply going to cost too much to convert the whole series.  The other is that studios are simply not supporting TV on Blu.  Many of my shows simply aren’t available (West Wing, The X-Files, ect.) and may never be available.  So do I take the plunge knowing the full conversion will probably never be complete?  I just haven’t been able to yet.

So as far as whether to convert or not to convert, I don’t have any straight up answers for you out there.  Chances are you’ve already made the choice for yourselves.  It comes down to finances for the most part, despite the fact that you can get a lot of blus for pretty darn cheap.  And I suppose that also ties in my my topic last time relating to collection size.  My collection is only at around 150 movies, but some people have 800 or so.  Well, that is a lot to convert and would of course take much more effort and funds.

So what did you do? Convert, or no? Or somewhere in between?