bmwracer wrote:

Again you steal my line?

Are you Jethro Bodine?

Anime Dad wrote:

Are you Jethro Bodine?

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Trade or Distro
It's all good!

Check out my drama trade list: http://www.freewebs.com/evendrama/

groink wrote:

My drama collection...

Damn groink! That's a crazy collection, but it's nicely organized. It looks hard to find what you're looking for though. And since it's all in the open, I imagine it'd be a bitch to keep it clean.

I still have to post my collection. I say I'll post it by the end of this year.
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Japanese drama trades (on hiatus)

Currently watching: Netflix stuff

sadacori wrote:

Damn groink! That's a crazy collection, but it's nicely organized. It looks hard to find what you're looking for though. And since it's all in the open, I imagine it'd be a bitch to keep it clean. I still have to post my collection. I say I'll post it by the end of this year.

C'mon Cori-chan! Do it!

Anime Dad wrote:

C'mon Cori-chan! Do it!

Will probably do that after my trip.
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Japanese drama trades (on hiatus)

Currently watching: Netflix stuff

bmwracer wrote:

I did some searching to find your pic(s) of your collection, but no luck...

I do know where there's a pic of Wyn-chan's collection, but I think we'd better get her permission to use it first

To be quite honest, I don't have a dust problem. I constantly rubble through the bins, and never once had to wipe an envelope of dust, so the constant movement of the collection doesn't allow for dust to collect. It also depends on where you place the collection, whereas I keep the collection near a hallway that's has consistent airflow because of the way the house is laid out. And last, each disc is individually wrapped in an envelope, just like comic books at a book store.

I also re-burn the discs to maintain longevity. Each disc is re-burned/replaced every two to three years. I built a DVD duplicator to perform this very task. I purchased a DVD duplicator controller from eBay for about $50. Found a 5.25-inch RAID chassis with seven drive bays at work while spring cleaning. Ripped out the SCSI cable guts, and replaced it with IDE cables. And, I purchased two Sony DVD burners, and pulled an old DVD-ROM drive from a broken PC to use as as the reader. The good thing about the old reader is that, at times I found that newer DVD drives cannot read media that were burned a few years earlier, which is why I perform the re-burn tasks.

And last, I use DVD discs with the printable labels. I prefer this over the glossy surfaces. This allows me to print directly on the discs using my Epson printer. Over the years, I found that the painted-on labels become brittle, and at times even yellow - both affecting the data side of the disc.

To answer Cori's question about finding stuff... Every disc is numbered on the envelope, and cataloged. I keep an Excel spreadsheet, documenting every disc, and even post it on Google for retrieval while away from home. That's how I can even tell you the date I recorded a show. The hard drives are also cataloged, using the good old fashioned "DIR /s > TEXTFILE.TXT" DOS command. I then keep the text files in a folder, along with the Excel spreadsheet. If I need to find something on the hard drives, I just perform a Windows search command against the text files.

--- groink

Now, that's dedication to your obsession. The local computer shop must love you - that's a LOT of blank DVD's!

groink: Wow, you make me feel like I neglect my drama collection, which I really do. I have been known to leave discs laying around. I really need to organize my stuff better. Maybe the pics that everyone posted will inspire me.
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More photos of my Japanese drama madness...

This is the DVD duplicator I spoke about earlier. From top to bottom: DVD-ROM drive, DVD duplicator controller (cheap!), and two Sony DVD burners.

This is my KIKU setup in my bedroom. The quality of KIKU's broadcast via bunny ears is cleaner than even digital cable. But with the conversion to DTV, I had to purchase an Insignia converter box, and a Zenith indoors DTV antenna. The Panasonic HDD/DVD recorder DMR-E80H is about five years old now, but still works like a champ! Although it records only analog TV, it still does the job for KIKU shows, since none of their shows are HDTV. I also have the digital cable box, and the Western Digital TV box I use to watch videos off the USB hard drives.

Here's even more madness... I set up a video production area in my den. You can barely see the Dell tower PC on the right side, which believe it or not still runs XP Professional RTM (no service packs, no patches/updates, etc.) It houses an ATI All-In-Wonder 9000 AGP card, and I use this for all of my analog-to-digital conversions. The top two units are also Panasonic HDD/DVD recorders, and the record the exact same KIKU shows as the unit in my bedroom.

The very top unit is the exact same DMR-E80H model as the bedroom unit. I purchased this backup about three months ago off eBay because you just can't find these things in stores any longer. The second Panny is the DMR-E85H, which has a bigger hard drive, but I don't like the firmware. The DMR-E80H is much faster!

Third unit is a digital cable DVR with an 80GB drive. I use this unit to capture all the NGN and other premium channel shows. I also record the exact same stream off its s-video port and onto the Dell PC via the ATI card. I've found that the ATI card doesn't have that MPEG-2 blocky effect that the Panny produces. Because NGN shows are much rarer in the trading world than KIKU shows, I dedicate more quailty towards the NGN shows.

Fourth unit is my Pioneer laser disc player. This is how I converted Hitotsu Yane no Shita to digital for use with the SARS fansubs. I continue to purchase used laser disc box sets of various shows that can't be found on DVD.

Fifth unit is a combo S-VHS/DVD unit, made by JVC. It has built-in TBC, and the videos I convert from VHS is excellent! When I'm very lazy, I just dub directly from VHS to DVD within the same unit. For dramas, I connect the VCR to the Dell PC and convert, because editing is so much easier on the PC.

The huge unit on the bottom is a professional-grade S-VHS recorder and editor. I was given this unit by PBS Hawaii a few years ago, when I did some computer work for them. I took it to JVC and spent several hundred dollars cleaning it and replacing several parts. This unit is much better than the newer JVC unit above, in that I have full control of the video's brightness/contrast, audio quality. This thing can also read the smaller S-VHS cassettes that were used in camcorders.

--- groink

Fascinating stuff, groink. That bottom unit is a rack-mount, you don't see those anywhere but in professional setups A friend of mine is a professional video/still photographer, he made up a DVD duplicator similar to yours but with 6 DVD burners in it!

That is mind-boggling, groink! I thought a friend of mine had a crazy set up, but apparently you're much more into the drama thing. I'm just speechless right now.
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groink wrote:

I also re-burn the discs to maintain longevity. Each disc is re-burned/replaced every two to three years. I built a DVD duplicator to perform this very task. --- groink

I envy you that duplicator. I have that problem with some of the older series especially those from DVD recorders. But I only reburn favorite series I know I will want to watch again.
_________________

Trade or Distro
It's all good!

Check out my drama trade list: http://www.freewebs.com/evendrama/

sadacori wrote:

I thought a friend of mine had a crazy set up, but apparently you're much more into the drama thing.

My nominee for "Understatement of the Year"

^ I hope the FBI doesn't spot these pics of groink's hardware...

Eve wrote:

I envy you that duplicator. I have that problem with some of the older series especially those from DVD recorders. But I only reburn favorite series I know I will want to watch again.

Re-burning discs seems rather paranoid, ne?

Is there any proof that the burned discs actually fail or lose data in those 2-3 years?



From Videohelp.com:

TO INSURE YOUR DISCS WORK WELL AND LAST A LONG TIME, DO THESE THREE THINGS:

1) Use GOOD media (DVD-R,DVD+R).
2) Verify the data has been successfully and flawlessly burned
3) Properly store the media

bmwracer wrote:

Re-burning discs seems rather paranoid, ne? Is there any proof that the burned discs actually fail or lose data in those 2-3 years?

It has nothing to do with longevity. It has everything to do with compatibility with other disc players. Many people don't realize that even four or five years ago, the discs we used back then are worse than what we purchase today. The dye used on new media today is of better quality. It is also proven many times that older media cannot be read on newer drives - not because the discs are getting bad, but rather the drives made today are actually of lesser quality. To make a drive today that burns and reads everything on the planet, some Q&A is lost in the process. This is why earlier I mentioned that the old DVD-ROM drives read the older discs, while the newer drives cannot. Copying an old DVD to today's media improves on the compatibility with today's drives.

--- groink

^ I gotcha.

That said, I can't say I've encountered very many compatibility issues with discs over the years... Of those few, most were from poor quality discs that I had received or bad burns.

After reading all the above, i won't even think of posting my collection pictures here.
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issy wrote:

After reading all the above, i won't even think of posting my collection pictures here.

Aww, come on....