G'day,

I like your program. I don't mind paying for it. And I like it more than the product from collectorz.com (mostly because I don't like the owners attitude over there, and the way he replied to my sales enquiries ('look it up on the website!'...). And since business and sales is mostly a case of wanting to give a good business man your business, he is out. Good business starts with proper manners :D

Anyway, it seems your product doesn't scan the movies on my hard drives / servers / network shares. That appears to be a big ommission, especially in this time and age of downloading movies instead of buying them physically in the store. For sure I am not the first one to ask this, but I'll ask it anyway: so how do the current users of your product solve this problem? I have 9500 movies on my servers (next to a couple of hundred of DVDs in my closet), I can't be expected to type this movies in manually, right? Do you all have some workaround for this? (The dude from Collectorz can scan hdd's, and Eric's movie database also can, as can media master, so it shouldn't be that difficult.)

This problem is keeping me from purchasing your product right now, so I really do hope that somebody will reply that there is a workaround for it, because then I will buy your product.

Thanks in advance for any replies,

Bye,

Quoting NoahM:

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(The dude from Collectorz can scan hdd's, and Eric's movie database also can, as can media master, so it shouldn't be that difficult.)

The scanning part is not difficult. Doing something intelligent with the result, is. I have unreleased tools that do scanning and create DVD Profiler databases, but in the past I have tuned then to each user's requirements (file naming scheme, folder structure, etc.). Also, one of the reasons you want DVD Profiler is for its precision and accuracy. Example, if I find a file on your server called "Star Wars", to which DVD release should it be associated (UPC/EAN), and in which locality?

It is very difficult to build a general tool that can map to DVD Profiler accurately. That is why it hasn't been done yet. And unless you violate license agreements, you usually have to pay for access to a database of DVD metadata used for the correlation. So, if you want to discuss a custom project, send me a PM. Only you can decide on a set of specific assumptions and compromises that the scanner can make in order to create the database. For example, if you don't care about the specific DVD Release, as long as there is a title match, this is the simplest (but most error prone) way to generate a database of profiles. Just take the first UPC with a title that sort of matches. The more accuracy you want, the harder it gets, and the longer it takes for the scanners to run.

The starting point if the discussion would be to give me an idea of what your file and folder schemes are, and we can discuss from there. The last project I did, resulted in a new set of features for LoadDVD called "Series specifications". Using these features you can associate an unlimited number of movie-related files to a DVD Profile - e.g., a set of episode files, trailers and versions of the main movie. This works best if you have an existing database of profiles. Then, my scanners use the metadata from the profiles to build the correlation by scanning your folders. Starting from a blank database is the hardest thing, as I mentioned, because you need access to somebody's metadata.

Finally, as an example of a non-specific association, see the LoadDVD Pro Netflix support. In this case, I take some parameters from DVD Profiler (such as title, release date) and use the Netflix API to identify the first match on a movie.. There is no correlation to a specific DVD release (UPC/EAN) because Netflix doesn't use those. This is just for convenience of playing the trailer and the Instant Movie from Netflix, by clicking on an icon.

I have done this kind of project for other people - one person had 100,000's of files. PM me if you want to explore further.

As noted the program is called DVDPROFILER not MovieProfilrr HarddriveProfiler or whatever.

Quoting NoahM:

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DVDs will be gone in a couple of years, at least most of them will.

Please don't make me fricking laugh

It isn't because some people prefer to download cheap looking stuff like you that a format will disapear... FYI people always purchase vinyl disc, VHS tape and music tape... even stranger those happen to be new releases, so think before writing insipid bland word.

I know it isn't constructive but I couldn't care less... stick with collectorz if it does what you want as DVDC will not change to please you.

Quoting NoahM:

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@MediaDog: thank you very, very, much for your extended reply; really appreciated. I simply need a list of my movies so I can see what I have, and what I don't have, with a box cover *.jpg, HD or SD mark, and the year released (to see whether it is an old movie or not). So nothing special. But with your offer I might have to pay you a lot of money for a custom built solution, and as much as I do appreciate your offer, I don't want to invest much money in this topic.

No problem. And you (nor I) have no idea what it would cost. I have spent hundreds of hours for free, just to have a partner to help test stuff that I already wanted to do, or to help out a user in special circumstances. I have also been the grateful recipient of funds from a couple of folks who could afford it - and they got massive attention. Some people have even spontaneously given me DVDs and electronics. So I take all that into account when helping people on stuff. Anyway, the primary reason for bringing up that topic is to assess the priorities of the requestor, and I got the impression that it was not that important to you, so obviously I would not "jump on it" myself.

Good luck to you anyway. If you check back every now and then, you might find something done - if I am so fortunate to stay healthy enough.

And if you do want to send me email, I have a web site. You can send me email to my user handle at that website.com.

Quoting Jimmy S:

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Quoting NoahM:

Quote:
DVDs will be gone in a couple of years, at least most of them will.

Please don't make me fricking laugh

It isn't because some people prefer to download cheap looking stuff like you that a format will disapear... FYI people always purchase vinyl disc, VHS tape and music tape... even stranger those happen to be new releases, so think before writing insipid bland word.

I know it isn't constructive but I couldn't care less... stick with collectorz if it does what you want as DVDC will not change to please you.

You have a way with words, I got to hand that to you.

I'll leave it at this: the stores are flooded with vinyl, VHS and music tapes for you to buy, right?

Good day, happy 1970 to you.

Quoting NoahM:

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You have a way with words, I got to hand that to you.

Always been my force dear. I just can't stand clueless people who don't even have a software and think we care about what they have to say when they have no clue of what they talk about.

Quoting NoahM:

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the stores are flooded with vinyl, VHS and music tapes for you to buy, right?

Yes, but I guess it is different on Pirate Island...

Quoting NoahM:

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Good day, happy 1970 to you.

You are quite the idiot dear...

Quoting Pantheon:

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Nowadays, Digital copies are supplied with DVD/BD sets and none of them are up to the quality of BDs either.

I know what you mean. Last time I saw a "HD Movie" from iTunes i got the shivers... Picture was filtered to death (hello wax figures...) to allow an as much a possible low bitrate so the file is not too big.
4GB is nothing compared to the 20-40GB on a physical disc.

I see some of the upsides of downloading, but the day it is the only option to get movies... well, I'll find other ways to spend my money.