Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

This week, my Lord of the Rings theatrical edition DVDs were upgraded to their recent Blu-ray counterparts -- mmm, pretty. I was intending to wait for the Extended Edition upgrade, but as that's likely several years away this is a most welcome birthday present (yes, the pill is sweetened by not actually having to pay for them). This means some number fiddling (switching from three DVDs to a single Blu-ray box set), compounded by an inexplicable error in my number of films total (now corrected).

Number of titles in collection: 1,171 [down 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,087 [down 3]
Of which Blu-rays: 84 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 2,841 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,237 [up 8]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 3,916 [no change]

Statistic of the week:

Running time of The Lord of the Rings DVDs/BDs:
98 hours, 39 minutes, and 39 seconds.

In honour of this week's biggest acquisition, I wondered just how much content there was on the new Lord of the Rings Blu-rays, plus the (in)famously stacked Special Extended DVD Editions. For the sake of clarity, these are the R2/UK Extended Editions and Region B/UK BDs -- so in both instances the US releases are even longer (thanks to PAL speed-up on the DVDs and a missing extra or two on the Blu-rays).

To break down that mass: 9 hours 19 minutes is the running time of the theatrical editions; 11 hours 37 minutes for the extended editions. Despite being criticised for a lack of extras, the theatrical editions boast 7 hours 41 minutes of special features. Of course, that's as nothing to the extended editions: they contain 46 hours 27 minutes of audio commentaries followed by 22 hours 21 minutes of documentaries and other extras. And that's not to mention the extensive image galleries, some with additional audio commentary. Rounding it out are the two bonus discs that came in gift boxes with Two Towers and Return of the King, an additional 1 hour 14 minutes.

And that's probably more detail than you wanted... though I have a lot more...

See you next week, faithful reader.