Bruji

Which is exactly why we're planning on moving away from Amazon and towards our own database

I think i missed that one (haven't been watching the forum for a while). Great news!

If possible (I understand that, from a commercial view, this might be challenging), please try to co-operate with other organizations like collectorz.com or discogs.com. I think a 'shared' database may be more attractive to all parties than yet another, not-so-complete database.

Whatever direction you're choosing, you've got my support

In case you need assistance in database-designs or webservices, I'm willing to give a hand; It's my job and I can always ask my colleagues to join in..

thajeztah wrote:

Which is exactly why we're planning on moving away from Amazon and towards our own database

I think i missed that one (haven't been watching the forum for a while). Great news!

If possible (I understand that, from a commercial view, this might be challenging), please try to co-operate with other organizations like collectorz.com or discogs.com. I think a 'shared' database may be more attractive to all parties than yet another, not-so-complete database.

Whatever direction you're choosing, you've got my support

In case you need assistance in database-designs or webservices, I'm willing to give a hand; It's my job and I can always ask my colleagues to join in..

I agree in principle with the idea of DVDpedia having its own database. TBH, for DVDs at least, I can't see why anyone really needs more than the IMDb - especially if we get an Option in DVDpedia to select local IMDb versions instead of just the US site. HST, although I pull the main information for my DVDs from IMDB, I do still do a second pass on Amazon UK - mainly for the UK BBFC ratings (similar to the US MPAA). Even the UK IMDb site doesn't give BBFC ratings, which is odd and the BBFC don't have an API currently. HST, Collectorz online database doesn't seem to give give ratings anyway (eg: http://connect.collectorz.com/movies/da ... e-box-2008) and as the site is totally US-centric even if it did it wouldn't be of any use to me. EDIT: I just downloaded and quickly tried their program and the ratings info etc *is* pulled in when I added that same movie. I disliked the interface mostly but there are some good points, especially their editing pane.

This seems to me to be the main challenge with an 'own label' database: ensuring the information is accurate and up to date and, most of all, comprehensive. I struggle to believe that every DVD and every *version* of each DVD would be included in an own label database.

At the end of the day, to get 100% data accuracy, the individual is always going to have to do some final tweaking of the data IMO. It is terrific to have a resource like the IMDb that DVDpedia can access at will, but the IMDb is for *movies* not for DVDs and the difference shows - for example DVDs have Extras and movies obviously don't! The main benefit of an automated data source is when you initially add hundreds or even thousands of DVDs to a database in one go - checking each record is then very time consuming. Once all your DVDs are entered, then adding new ones is relatively simple and it's easy to give the entries the once-over to make sure the data is how you want it, manually changing any bits you don't like. I check each entry every time I play a DVD and correct any obvious errors or omissions at that time.

Nothing is perfect but DVDpedia comes closest IMO - and the really, really, really amazing thing about DVDpedia is the level of support from the developers and their willingness both to listen and to change things to suit the users. Like you, I would give my full support to Bruji in whichever way they decide to go - it's a shame that Amazon are being so thick-headed about all this, at no discernible benefit to themselves AFAICS.

Kind regards,

Keith

kbarnes70 wrote:It is terrific to have a resource like the IMDb that DVDpedia can access at will, but the IMDb is for *movies* not for DVDs and the difference shows - for example DVDs have Extras and movies obviously don't!

That doesn't bother me since my DVDpedia usage is more like a hypothetical Moviepedia, for tracking significantly more movies I've seen (or want to) than own. I can imagine a few theatre/rental-oriented features making DVDpedia more useful for the latter without impacting it's traditional, owner-oriented purposes and think that might broaden its appeal. I made similar comments a couple months ago but didn't get any response.

sjk wrote:

kbarnes70 wrote:It is terrific to have a resource like the IMDb that DVDpedia can access at will, but the IMDb is for *movies* not for DVDs and the difference shows - for example DVDs have Extras and movies obviously don't!

That doesn't bother me since my DVDpedia usage is more like a hypothetical Moviepedia, for tracking significantly more movies I've seen (or want to) than own.

Ah yes - in my case it's the opposite. I rarely see a movie at the cinema these days and hardly ever watch them on TV because by the time they get to TV I've usually either seen them or bought them anyway. Similarly, I never rent a movie - I buy them (always assuming I will want to watch them more than once or twice). Nevertheless, IMDb is still my primary resource and I am happy with it. I wouldn't really care all that much if all the Amazon links to DVDpedia were severed really. But I can see that the other pedias would have problems, there being no equivalent of IMDb for those users.

sjk wrote:I can imagine a few theatre/rental-oriented features making DVDpedia more useful for the latter without impacting it's traditional, owner-oriented purposes and think that might broaden its appeal. I made similar comments a couple months ago but didn't get any response.

I agree. So long as they didn't get in the way of the owner-users so to speak, and there's no reason why they should, it would be a good additional and differentiating feature.

Kind regards,

Keith

Thanks for the comments, Keith.

imdb.com is owned by Amazon...

Are there any plans at all to provide a means of viewing your collection on the iPad. I have PP2 on the iPhone and would love some form of viewer to browse my collection on my newly aqcuired iPad.

Regards


Adrian

adrianwright wrote:Are there any plans at all to provide a means of viewing your collection on the iPad. I have PP2 on the iPhone and would love some form of viewer to browse my collection on my newly aqcuired iPad.

Regards


Adrian

Your iPhone PP2 app will work on the iPad. AIUI all iPhone apps will work on the iPad.

Kind regards,

Keith

There are plans for a native iPad version, once we solve our issue with Amazon.

Conor wrote:There are plans for a native iPad version, once we solve our issue with Amazon.

That would be superb. Any progress with Amazon then?

Kind regards,

Keith

I for one would be happy with at least a way to export my collection of books to my iPad. I will wait a little while before I jump ship to see if you guys can work it out ... I moved over from using collectorz to you simply because your product is so much better ...

Thank you, we are working on it.

I recently installed an application that is using isbndb.com. Everyone has to create a free account on that site and retrieves an API code. This code is then entered in the application after which you can perform searches in the database. For books published in dutch, this seems to be a much better alternative than amazon is: all books are retrieved, included covers, where amazon very often fails to retrieve any information.

Maybo worth considering.

Thank you for the link to a new data source.

I am a long time DVDPedia user, have my 1200 movies catalogued in there and love it to bits. I am also an iPad and iPhone user and miss the availability of PocketPedia and even more so the potential PadPedia (or PocketPediaHD which seems to be the naming trend). I am also an iPad/iPhone developer.

I have noticed that the DVDPedia database is well designed, uses MySQL in an open format and can be easily interrogated (I have written some automation apps to add new movies into it for example and the ability to access the links from Windows Machines).

Am I correct in thinking:

- I could develop a sync component for OSX reading the MySQL database
- Develop an iPad app that used an iPad Core-Data format to store this data , synced over wifi with the main DB
- Use this app to navigate, add movies, show links etc (Effectively all the things that DVDPedia does except Amazon) making sure to not reference an amazon sourced data?
- Ideally integrate with a product such as StreamToMe for the iPad (awesome streaming system) so that Stored (linked) files could play directly on the iPad

I am only a DVDPedia user so no interest in the bookpedia etc products, this is just Movies and TV Shows. And I should mention that all the movies I reference are stored on a server with the original DVD/BluRay kept safe in a cupboard

Would this violate your licensing terms / Anyone else's?

Ken