Get Advanced Info misadventure [DVDPedia]

[sitenoise]

I have a few dozen films in my library that aren't at IMDb yet. I can easily spot them because they have no rating. The other day I thought to myself "Let's see if IMDb has them yet" and selected them all (mistake #1) and hit Get Advanced Info.

Well, it picked about half of them and filled in data from absurdly unrelated movies.

I would have loved a "Last modified" column to sort by to easily find and then undo the mess. Since it filled in ratings that sort didn't work any more.

How to prevent, or head off at the pass, IMDb from filling in nonsense with no recourse but to snoop around making guesses? I didn't have a list of the exact titles so ...

Also, Conor, are you still working on a way to "update" certain fields ... like Rating ...

[sjk]

I would have loved a "Last modified" column to sort by to easily find and then undo the mess.

Last Modified would be useful metadata for me, too.

How to prevent, or head off at the pass, IMDb from filling in nonsense with no recourse but to snoop around making guesses?

My idea was to use File > New Collection From Selection, then run File > Exclude Collection From Library on the result, as a way to have backup copies of items before attempting riskier updates (especially in batches). Unfortunately that didn't work as expected, which I described earlier.

Also, Conor, are you still working on a way to "update" certain fields ... like Rating ...

That would be more convenient than the workaround of deleting field values in order to force Get Advanced Info to attempt updating them (and possibly other empty fields you might not expect). Field updating can be related to per-field download sources, too.

[Conor]

I'll consider adding a date edited column with the next serious update. It's also useful to remember that DVDpedia has an undo option and that the first search on IMDb it's better to do with the gear button on the lower right of the edit window, this will present you with choices from the IMDb search results and although not automated, it means DVDpedia does not need to guess.

a way to "update" certain fields ... like Rating ...

Not at the moment, I have been working on Pocketpedia.

[sjk]

I'll consider adding a date edited column with the next serious update.

Thanks. I think every update can be serious… especially if something goes wrong.

It's also useful to remember that DVDpedia has an undo option and that the first search on IMDb it's better to do with the gear button on the lower right of the edit window, this will present you with choices from the IMDb search results and although not automated, it means DVDpedia does not need to guess.

I've been selecting one or more items and running Advanced > Get Advanced Info for Selection > IMDb to update them, e.g. after they were originally created with Amazon.com data by scanning/searching.

If I want to add an item with IMDb data first, then I just enter its "tt#" IMDb number and it'll find that after failing for Amazon.com.

I have been working on Pocketpedia.

Appreciated, since I'll be relying on that more as my desktop collections get in better shape.