#1
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What to do with outdated media?
Media as in CD’s, DVD’s, VHS tapes....
I started a home cleanup project today, beginning with our over stuffed basement storage area. (After three kids and 27+ years in the same house the stuff has just piled up.) I haven’t counted but I’m guessing there’s close to 400 CD’s, probably 200 DVD’s and 100+ VHS tapes. (Most of the DVD’s and virtually all the VHS tapes are kid related-Disney and the like.). Digital music and streaming visual entertainment has made these items all but obsolete. We still have a combo CD/DVD player and some items-notably Christmas music and movies-will be kept. The rest of it.... What do I do with them? Are they all just so much garbage now? What have you guys done?
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Please note: higher than average likelihood that any post by me is going to lean heavily on sarcasm. Just so we’re clear... |
#2
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Check with your local Friends of the Library. Ours, in the City of Orange in Orange County take donations of the CDs and DVDs and resell them in the used bookstore. The money made in the bookstore goes to supporting the library by buying books and funding summer reading programs. Our Friends no longer take VHS tapes though since most people have stopped purchasing them but a lot of people buy used CDs and DVDs.
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#3
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Five years ago, it was time for me to make similar decisions. I decided to keep a very small portion of what I owned. I tried to sell the CD’s to a music store. They took about 1/10th of them and gave me a store credit that was about $1 per CD. Tried to donate the rest of them without much success. Gave about 400 CD’s and a couple of dozen DVD’s to my guitar teacher. He was happy to accept them.
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#4
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I have been selling a lot of vinyl on Discogs. I have about 1000 cd's and I can't imagine getting rid of them, I still frequently play them, and they really don't take up much room. There is a market for them on Discogs - some are very valuable. I would think used cd & record stores would give you money for at least some of your cd's and possibly dvd's. I don't think VHS tapes are worth anything - landfill material.
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#5
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I ripped all my CD's several years ago and have them backed up in several places. Even though I subscribe to a music service I like having my classic stuff available in a non-subscription mode. I always put on a 8 GB playlist of my favorites on every new phone I buy just so I have it. I kept the CD's for years after ripping but finally gave them away to friends to pass out.
We still have our DVD's because even though we subscribe to a video service they don't have everything so I'll keep that. We have a few VHS (mostly kids Disney stuff) but I think all that is going to go away at the next basement cleanup this spring. |
#6
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Quote:
I'm keeping my 100/200 CDs (whatever the count is) although I could get rid of some of them that I know I'll never listen to again, whether ripped or on CD. I only had a few VHS tapes but I threw them away a couple of years ago when I moved. |
#7
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Simple, in a box up in the attic of the garage. Out of sight, out of mind. Someday someone will buy the whole box of them for five bucks at my estate sale. Honestly, they don't take much space up there and I don't have the time nor the inclination to figure out what to do with them. The cassette tapes are on the bottom. Right now I can find anything up there online and I can stream it if I want to listen to it.
__________________
Please don't take me too seriously, I don't. Taylor GS Mini Mahogany. Guild D-20 Gretsch Streamliner Morgan Monroe MNB-1w https://www.minnesotabluegrass.org/ |
#8
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Donate them to a nursing home. My mother would be all over the "new arrivals" in the library at her residence.
Seriously, they won't fetch a good price on the market. I learned that the hard way when I tried to sell my partial collection of a television series (Stargate SG-1) that I binge watched. I spent $100 on the media 10 years ago and only received $5 back at Half Price Books because of the lack of demand. BTW, now I can watch that series on Netflix. It's even "trending" again. |
#9
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I'm a bit of an archivist and prefer to keep my original media (ditto for books). With maybe 250 CD's in the library, I have ripped most of them and usually listen on my iPhone with ear buds or through the car stereo. But I find it comforting to have the CD's still - even if they do not get played often. I also have a good library of Homespun and Stefan Grossman guitar instructional DVD's. In fact, I ordered several more titles over the weekend during a flash sale. We have long lived in areas without the cheapest, speediest interweb connection, so streaming is not ideal. Heck, I still have a few dozen cassettes and a couple of boxes of vinyl too.
Donating to a senior living center is a great idea. Those are generally folks that don't stream or download to modern devices, so physical media is a good thing. |
#10
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Quote:
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#11
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I saw a recent article discussing the great demand for Disney VHS tapes. I through all of mine away - there goes a small fortune!
__________________
----------------------------- Jim Adams Collings OM Guild 12 String Mark V Classical Martin Dreadnaught Weber Mandolin |
#12
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I packed my CDs into boxes and placed them in my garage, when I jumped to digital media in 2005 (and DVDs by 2007). Now, as I'm 99.9% streaming, I'm doing the same with my bloated hard drives that contain media files that rarely get used. We just talked about what to do with the boxes, which have now been sitting (and probably deteriorating) for 1-1/2 decades. We'll try to donate locally (library, elsewhere), so we don't have to e-waste them.
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"It's only castles burning." - Neil Young |
#13
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After I ripped my many cd s to flac lossless, I was fortunate to have been put in touch with a local priest. He was shipping lots of material to a library that he supported in Nigeria.
So, somewhere across the ocean, there’s a village listening to Toby Walker and the Grateful Dead! Rick
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”Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” |
#14
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We still play vinyl all the time. I keep thinking that someday my kids will find all those cassettes and CDs in the attic of the garage and go bonkers over them. I do have a number of vinyl albums though that are new. Some things never go out of style.
__________________
Please don't take me too seriously, I don't. Taylor GS Mini Mahogany. Guild D-20 Gretsch Streamliner Morgan Monroe MNB-1w https://www.minnesotabluegrass.org/ |
#15
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My box full of cassette's has been in the basement for years. My daughter recently bought a car and I reacquired the 98 Corolla she's been driving for the last decade.
It has a cassette player. I'm getting to hear stuff I haven't heard in years and years. |