Categories
The Next Good Idea

DVDs w/ Cross Platform Commentaries

I have been frustrated how DVDs do not exploit their technology. It is a long list as to what they could do to make better use of it, and hopefully one day I will build that out. In the meantime if you have any suggestions please forward them on to us here. And to tide you over until the day comes with the mega-uber list:

This suggestion from Dan McGuire:
Movie dvds should include a Aiff or Mp3 audio file of the director’s commentary, so I can listen to the comments on my ipod or car cd player the day after viewing the film.

How great would that be!
Categories
The Next Good Idea

Environmental Action: Jewel Boxes

What if everyone started mailing the UNrecyclable plastic jewel boxes from CDs and the plastic DVD covers back to the record labels and film studios COD, with a note “Please recycle”?  Do you think they might start moving to more eco-friendly cardboard version?

Categories
The Next Good Idea

Organizing CDs & DVDs

I can’t quite get used to a world where everything is digital. I still live in the physical world.  I even still buy CDs!  And I like to watch DVDs — they are on my TV, the picture is sharp, the access is immediate.  Why settle for less?  We don’t yet live in the perfect world of downloads, so we are burdened with physical excess. 

But I also live in NYC — which means one thing I don’t have is space.  And I have over 4000 CDs and probably half as many DVDs.  So what can I do so I don’t have to look at all those ugly jewelboxes and the like?  My GOOD IDEA here is far from perfect.
Nonetheless, it was a happy day when I threw all that plastic away and cleared out the shelves.  I have filed all of my discs into three ring binders with removable pages, sorting them by genre and then alphabetical within that.  It was a long time-consuming project and requires considerable updating to this day.  The binders remain too cumbersome.  But it’s an improvement from the clutter and eye-sore.  I can’t understand why discs continue to come in those plastic cases.
I do have most of my music digitized now and on various hard drives, but if there was a fire, I think I would take the binders over the drives.  Go figure.
The binders I use are available here.  Let me know if there is anything better out there.