Best Strategy to Organize Recorded DVDs

I have an inkjet printer, a Canon iP4200, which will print onto "inkjet printable" CD's and DVDs, which cost about 50% more than regular ones. However, this is a lot slower than writing on disks with a Sharpie or similar pen. I am putting 5 to 6 movies on a disk though and the printer can print a lot smaller than I can legibly write.

I know what you mean about OCD. I have about 450 movies which I am practically certain I shall never watch again, given (1) most of them are crap (2) there are new films coming out all the time (3) I am 55 years old and the good Lord will probably take me sometime in the next 45 years. I have been toying with the idea of just disposing of them when my 7 year old Sony VHS machine finally breaks.

Another thing - VHS tapes in quantity are a bad thing to have around if there is a fire. They go up really easily and give off lots of poisonous smoke and gas. A fire officer told me that.

For that many DVDs it might be a good idea to spend the money and get a lightscribe DVD writer. It will write on the DVD itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe


The other option is to get a DVD printer like contrex suggested.
It may take longer than writing with a pen but you are already spending time burning the DVDs which takes even more time. It's easy to print the DVD while one is burning.

The big problem is actually seeing the label if the DVD's are on a shelf. How about getting different color jewel boxes and then print a label for the jewel boxes along with labeling the DVD. You may as well go all the way and , instead of copying to an "intermediate format" go and download all the movies on a server. A terabyte oughta do it :wink:

Not a bad solution, actually. In my local branch of Maplin (UK equivalent of Fry's, I think) they sell a £100 "wireless streaming device" that plugs in your TV and plays stuff off your wirelessly connected PC. A terabyte of storage would cost about £200.

a100 (Lb) here and 200(Lb) there and pretty soon were talking about some real money.

How much is it to convert the VHs's to DVD's?

A lot of money? My Sony VHS cost £150 in 2000. My first DVD player cost £120 in 2003.

I'm not sure about the conversion to English pounds, but my Panasonic DVR, which I'm using to record the VHS tapes onto DVD's cost around $160 a couple of years ago. It does pretty much everything I want it to do. And I guess the cost on the copying (exclusive of my time - which my wife would suggest is worth zero . . .), is only about 25 cents per DVD disk. Mostly I'm encouraging this conversion to retrieve some space conservation (700+ VHS tapes take up a lot of room).

Getting back on topic, some good input here so far. The lightscribe writer and some of these other ideas are intriguing, but I'm searching for something maybe a little more low-tech. The idea about the storage in the jewel boxes is not bad, but some the downsides were highlighted, plus I think those jewel boxes can be a fairly expensive proposition. I'm still leaning toward something like a set of sleeved pages (clear plastic, nylon, etc.), where you could slide DVDs into both sides (three or six to a sleeve page, or maybe six to twelve if double-sided) and then the pages could go into some type of ring binder).

I'm interested in the printable labels concept. Sounds like it would be easy to configure and print, with sufficient legible detail. Can you print DVD labels and then adhere them to a disk, without the adhesive damaging the disk and breaking down the reflective underside coating over time. I'm wary about the label approach, since a couple of years back my dad thought that it would be a slick idea to label a Microsoft Office disk with a stick-on label, and the label evertually worked itself loose and took off the top layer from the disk, compromising the reflective surface underneath - and permanently ruining the disk (thanks dad . . .). What's about that angle, are those types of after-market labels available, or is the only option the printable DVDs that contrex describes.

You can get CD/DVD labelling kits. You get sheets which have a round label in them, you print it in your printer, it is scored so the disk label just lifts out. You get a kind of little press which presses the label evenly onto the disk. The glue is supposed to be kind to disks.

Hi there,

I used a CD labelling kit before for DVD labels, they looked great but the label made my DVD skip when playing it.

I would probably go with Parados's idea and would spend the money and get a lightscribe DVD writer as then you wont have the problems of DVDs skipping when playing like you can do with the kits.

I probably will take a bit longer but would be well worth it!


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