What is the difference between lists and collections? I’m using lists (“Watchlist”) to mark what I want to see, and after a see that movie / episode, I mark them seen. I’ve seen people that are gathering items in collections, whether seen or not-seen. For me it’s a bit confusing to have both lists and collections…
What’s a proper use of a collection?
Thanks!
Collections is to track what you have physically or digitally, for example digital purchases of movies or physical DVD/Blu-rays.
Thank you, @helinus
That’s it, an index? Pretty useless if you come to think today the majority of media consumption is streaming, not owning, isn’t it?
Well, yeah, rumor has it there are still some half-witted dinosaurs out there - like myself 
- which may be fond of some ancient nowadays merely archeological terms like Media-Servers and collections. Pretty sure we’re dying out soon, but until then - if you don’t mind - please let us be. 
:)) I’m no spring chicken either and I have some tons of movies myself!
But why wouldn’t we have just another list (which could be called “Collection”) with what we own, instead of having another category of, well… lists, which is called Collections? We could simply put a movie in a Watchlist list or in Collection list, or even in both if we liked.
I still feel I’m missing the scope of having two categories of lists.
There is some deeper meaning with these semi-automated lists. You’re able to manipulate them via API and apps, so that your entries there may be in fact “automated” not just manually put one by one.
I’m quoting Justin here:
For an in depth article all about collections: https://blog.trakt.tv/how-to-build-your-collection-146e6e80bcd7
Yes, API is a thing!
I have yet to input my “Collections,” except maybe a couple to try it out. However I, for one, am glad for the category as I consider Collections particularly special w/r/t owning (hard format or digital) the medium—as opposed to catching a flick on the fly by streaming. If I own a title, it’s cuz I have an emotional investment, and might like to track it for a variety of social and even professional purposes.
I have a ton of watchlist categories, and it would suck to clutter it further with sublists for special collections. And finally, for serious cinephiles the feature allows you to input and sort by METADATA: Format; Resolution; HDR; 3D; Audio; Channels.
So that’s a couple reasons. I have yet to read the blog posts on developing a Collection, but might be worth a look to get me started.
I dont have physical media but I use collections as a virtual vault to hold all my favorite movies. I then have several lists which are temporary. Warchlist was for all the movies I want to see, but they grew to 800 titles
I have since broken that up into smaller lists broken into movie moods I have (i.e. fun movies, upNext- what I want to see this week, Oh the Horror - tense/horror movies, oldies but goodies- black.and whites, nor, etc).
My mate Paul, he collected collections.
Wrote a memoir - “Recollections of a Collection Collector”.
As far as I know, it’s still unpublished.
Quotes from a truly brilliant British Comedy called Detectorists, which I wholeheartedly recommend on top of this topic if I may. 
Well, there are many nerds around the world who still buy Blur-rays and DVD. I do becouse the sound are othen better as wht you get when you stream. Well, thats what I rhink.And if you buy things as from the criterion ollection so are youj getting the best qualite that you can get of a movie
Exactly! Streaming services add some pretty significant compression to a video/audio stream. 4K Blu-ray is going to have on average about five times more data than a streamed copy. AKA having a higher bitrate.
You may be watching a movie at 4K or 1080p but you will have blockyness not from low resolution, but from lost data that was thrown away during compression and then having to rebuild the file with less information. Maybe you have seen banding/blockyness in dark/high contrast areas of a video.
An example is hold music for a call center, it always sounds bad because audio is compressed a lot to go over phone lines.
Here is another extreme example…
More info if anyone wants to know more:
Sorry for getting al sciency on y’all!
funny how that screengrab is literally from a YouTube video 
screengrab makes it look like right is a YT screengrab, and left a … DVD/Blu-ray whatever.