Catalog your Blu-ray collection

Blu-ray is the format where the same film keeps coming back. A new master, a different cut, a restoration, a boutique reissue with its own extras — so "I own Blade Runner on Blu-ray" names almost nothing. There are a dozen discs behind that sentence and they are not the same object.

The home video catalog holds 13,070 Blu-ray releases, one entry per disc rather than one per film. That entry is where your copy lives.

The discs that sit with Blu-ray

The catalog covers the whole shelf around Blu-ray, not just the format itself: 549 releases on 4K Ultra HD, 392 on Blu-ray 3D, 51 Blu-ray/DVD combo discs, 88 on HD DVD and 25 more on the HD DVD/DVD combo that briefly hedged that bet. A release carries its formats as a list, so a 4K pack with a standard Blu-ray and a digital copy in it is one entry with three rows, not three entries.

One wrinkle before you add anything: 4K appears under two names, 4K Ultra HD (549) and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray (59), because the first arrived with the imported data and the second is what the form now offers. Same format. Pick the one in the dropdown and the counts repair themselves.

Region, honestly

Blu-ray uses A, B and C, and they are not DVD's numbers in new clothes — that whole scheme is laid out in DVD and Blu-ray region codes explained. What matters here is what people have actually recorded. Across Blu-ray releases: B 5,310, A 4,763, C 2,302 and ALL 1,556. Then 1 on 976 rows and 2 on 845 — DVD region numbers sitting on a Blu-ray release.

Some of that is correct in spirit: the entry is a combo pack and the number describes the DVD in the box. Some of it is simply wrong. On a combo pack, put the letter on the release and leave the DVD's number to the notes. Do not add a number just because the DVD had one.

4K needs the opposite warning. The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format was specified with no region coding at all, so a 4K disc has no region to record. The catalog still shows A 253, B 239, C 189 and ALL 24 on 4K releases, and nearly all of those are describing the standard Blu-ray packed alongside. Useful information, recorded in a misleading place. On a 4K-only release, leave region empty.

Leave Video standard empty

Blu-ray has no PAL and no NTSC. It has a frame rate. The field exists because the catalog came from a database built on tape and DVD, where NTSC and PAL were the first thing you needed to know about a disc.

On Blu-ray releases it is unrecorded 9,144 times, which is right, and then PAL 2,010 and NTSC 1,524, which are not. Ninety-two rows say "NTSC [DVD]" and 69 say "NTSC (DVD only)" — those are contributors who knew the field did not apply and meant the DVD in the pack. They had the right instinct. On a Blu-ray-only release, leave Video standard blank.

Disc specs, packaging and aspect ratio

Each format row has a free-text description beside the type, and that is where the disc itself goes: BD-25 for single layer, BD-50 for dual, and on 4K, BD-66 and BD-100. The same fact is currently spelled four ways — BD-50 499 times, "BD-50 (Dual Layer)" 104, BD50 70, "BD 50" 37 — so use the hyphenated form and leave the layer count to the number.

Packaging is a list, which matters more on Blu-ray than on any other format, because a SteelBook inside a slipcase is both. Keep case leads at 7,767, then Slipcase 797, Box Set 424, SteelBook 357, large hardbox 207 and Digipak 203. On 4K: 359 keep cases, 79 slipcases, 60 SteelBooks. This is where Blu-ray collectors actually spend their money, and it is the part a bare title never records.

Aspect ratio is filled in on 11,805 Blu-ray releases, led by 1.85:1 (1,330), 2.35:1 (1,089), 2.40:1 (1,019) and 16:9 (707). Those three scope figures are largely three ways of writing the same frame; copy what the case prints rather than rounding it yourself.

What is already filled in

Coverage on Blu-ray rows is better than you might expect: identifying codes on 12,312, company credits on 12,306, aspect ratio on 11,805, region on 10,253, notes on 6,583. The thin field is release date — it barely exists anywhere in the catalog, because the old site had no such field and people recorded the year on a company credit instead. Do not trust an empty date as a statement.

The most-credited companies say who built this: Warner Bros. Entertainment 921 releases, Warner Home Video 791, Universal Studios 687, then **The Criterion Collection** at 597 — ahead of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Criterion that high up tells you this data came from collectors, not from a sales catalogue.

Add your own copies

Putting a release in your collection creates a copy, and the copy is yours: its condition, where you keep it, what you paid and private notes, with the last two visible only to you. Two of the same disc is two copies. Today 1,667 Blu-ray releases are in at least one member's collection, 93 on 4K and 2 on HD DVD, so there is a great deal of shelf still missing.

Start with the discs you can reach, and match the catalogue number on the back rather than the title on the front. If the exact release is not here, add it. More on that in collections and wantlists, condition grading and what happened to Filmogs.