negative1 said:
right now, i'm in the nightmarish position of trying to figure out how to organize

several terabytes of data, and be able to find something without digging through

hundreds of discs.

Categorize.

Start by making piles of discs. Start with all the categories of movies that you see in Blockbuster aisles or on Netflix. Once you get through that, start working out your own categories - or sub-categories within the standard movie ones - to suit your collection. Behind The Scenes, Fan Edits, Not Officially Available on DVD, Recorded from Broadcast, and so on.

Once you've got all these piles worked out, start putting them into Excel, or if you have a heavy-duty version of Office, use Access. If you feel the need to have everything in printed form, use different color loose-leaf binders for the various categories.

I'm also guessing you have a number of discs that are just conglomerations of whatever was clogging your hard drives at that point in time. Assuming you have as much content as you say you do and aren't exaggerating, keep in mind that part of this process will most likely involve copying and re-organizing content from one disc to another or out onto separate discs.