DVD/Movie cataloging software

Posted by: andym

DVD/Movie cataloging software - 28/01/2006 21:42

Can anyone recommend some software to help me keep track of my DVDs? I moved them all into a wallet and now find it a tad annoying to keep flicking though it to find the disc I want. I'm also thinking about ripping the whole lot to HD eventually so being able to mount an image and play it in one go would be useful too. It has to be linux/mac based as well.
Posted by: matthew_k

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 29/01/2006 03:51

Well, plenty of people love delicious library but I've never tried it. The best feature is using an iSight as a barcode reader.

Matthew
Posted by: ricin

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 29/01/2006 04:36

I use DVD Profiler. It was about $25 four or five years ago (it's $29.95 now), and I've never looked back. That one-time fee gets me the latest version as they come out. Well worth the money. Basically the price of a DVD or two.

My collection is here, but I haven't submitted my latest update (from Christmas and my birthday ), so it's missing a good 30+ DVDs.

Edit: Bah, I didn't read that last bit about wanting something linux/Mac based until after I typed all that out. Oh well.
Posted by: drakino

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 29/01/2006 05:33

I'd second Delicious Library. I picked it up after getting an iSight, and really appreciate some of the features in it. A big one for me is the exporting of the library to an iPod, so I can quickly check my podcast playing Nano at the store to see what DVDs I already have, as I have been prone to buying things twice accidently or skipping something because I thought I owned a movie an old roomate did.

Combine it with a free web exporter and your library can be seen anywhere. Some people posted libraries in the comments section of that post.
Posted by: Cris

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 29/01/2006 07:15

I use a combination of DVDLobby PPC, a 200 disc Sony DVD Changer and USB-UIRT to manage my collection. It works really well, I use my PPC (o2 XDAIIi) to browse the collection tap the screen when I find the film I want and the software does the rest. Very Neat.

I can see how having the whole collection on HD would be good, as I would like to select my own trailers to be shown first (ie downloads from quicktime site) and then skip the menus and just play the film. But this current solution allows me to hide away all those ugly DVD boxes, while also removing the need to flip through 100's of discs finding the one I want. You can pick up older changers like my 850D pretty cheap on eBay now, may be worth a look.

Cheers

Cris.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 29/01/2006 16:32

When I saw Delicious library it was the first time that I considered getting a Mac. It's gorgeous and I love the whole idea. I'm amazed that nobody has made a similar program for the PC.
Posted by: Waterman981

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 29/01/2006 20:07

Quote:
I'm amazed that nobody has made a similar program for the PC.

MediaMan

I can't compare them side to side as I don't have a mac, but the look and functionality appear to be the same.
Posted by: andym

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 29/01/2006 20:28

I ended up going for DVDAttache which is a Java app, it's not too bad. Using its combined Amazon and IMDB search I managed to rifle through my entire collection in about half an hour. Yeah some of the tags might need a little tweaking but it's a start. At least I could take the data from it and use with something else later.

Attached is a screenshot running on Linux, there is also a specific OSX flavoured version which I'll have a go with next time I go downstairs....
Posted by: Cris

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 29/01/2006 21:06

Do any of these apps aloow control of a DVD changer? or allow you to launch rips of them?

If not, what is the point of them? You will still have to keep a flip file in some form of order so you can find the chosen disc in your collection.

Cheers

Cris.
Posted by: andym

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 30/01/2006 08:15

Well I don't have either of those at the moment. What I do have is an xml file containing all the details and a bunch of front covers that I could use elsewhere. Mythvideo has navigation/launch features, I could probably just convert the data and use that as a frontend.

At the moment it's really just an easy way make the list.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 30/01/2006 12:09

Quote:
Quote:
I'm amazed that nobody has made a similar program for the PC.

MediaMan

I can't compare them side to side as I don't have a mac, but the look and functionality appear to be the same.


Wow, it's very similar. Thanks, though! Anyone know a good, cheap webcam?
Posted by: andym

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 30/01/2006 16:25

Quote:
good, cheap webcam?


In my experience the two are mutually exclusive.
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 30/01/2006 20:08

I like the Logitech Quickcam Fusion I got recently, so here's a vote for it. I use it mostly to communicate with my brother overseas face to face via Skype. Works beautifully for that.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 01/02/2006 22:06

Quote:
Do any of these apps aloow control of a DVD changer? or allow you to launch rips of them?

I don't know about a DVD changer, but MediaMan can launch any file you want to associate with a given DVD, using the default program for that file type.

I'm loving this program, and will definitely be sending along my $40. I bought a webcam for scanning, but realized too late that it had a damn fixed focus lense, so I couldn't take closeup shots of the barcodes. I did, however, finally get my camcorder to work. Basically the program will use whatever video capture device you want, but it's a newer feature, and not programmed that well yet. It kept insisting that I use my TV tuner card instead of the camcorder. I wasn't using my card anyway, so I uninstalled it and now that it only has one device to choose from everything works great! I've already scanned in a ton of stuff (see attachment).
Posted by: Waterman981

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 01/02/2006 22:27

When I originally looked at MediaMan it was because you could export your list to HTML. But my upsteam is so slow a 10 MB file with images wasn't acceptable. So instead I am linking to DVD Profilier, which works much better for me. But MediaMan has so many cool features I wish DVD Profilier had. (Like supporting CD's as well)
Posted by: Dignan

Re: DVD/Movie cataloging software - 02/02/2006 03:12

But you don't need the images. It can export however much information you want.

The thing I'm not liking at the moment is the sorting method for CDs. By default it sorts by the title, which is not very usefull. The other option is to sort by artist, which is what I'd like, but the problem is that the software guesses when there's more than one word in the artist title. For example, I have "Queens of the Stone Age" at the beginning of the list. It's kind of neat, but I'd like the option to turn it off.