What is nice about MC is that you can import everything across the drive and then arrange it which differs greatly from most other programs that are based in the folder scheme.
I wanted to be able to set MC12 up to not only mimic Microsoft but more importantly exceed it in every way (games is about the only thing missing). The more I delve into the product, the more I find out what MC12 is really capable of for HTPC needs (sadly, this may be one of the reasons for the lack of more adoption- it has so much the average user gets lost --
maybe MC13 needs a template option for new users to download and be up and running from those of us who have taken the time to learn 30% of the program).
As for your question.
Action, Anime, Comedy, Documentary (this is new, I liked your category) Drama, Foreign (New- Just loaded Kill with Intrigue and several other old Jackie Chan movies, and oldboy/ lady vengeance last night) Horror, Independent, Children, Romance, Sci-fi, Suspense (forgot this one) Television, Thriller, and Trailers. I like having the trailers because, my plan (albeit a large one) is to create the trailers for all of my movies (most are right on the disk) and then hopefully in the future version of MC, I could have the cover art and then play the trailer to the movie as a sort of preview.
The decision to use these categories was mostly a decision between my wife and I. We love movies (granted we are now where near your amount of DVDs
) and since this database is for us, we thought our categorization mattered more. Some movies are probably misclassified but when we are looking for a movie we know exactly where to go as we think of a movie.
I think the most important thing for us was trying to find the mix. I wanted categories that numerous movies would fit and it would not over complicate things making a field with three movies. About the only movies that make things irritating are those like Oceans 11-13 sure they are comedy movies but they have action and suspense. When I want an action movie, I do not want to see this movie in the field yet it is not a comedy when I want to laugh hysterically. I ultimately decided on comedy.
A friend of mine built is server and took his classification to the extreme, teen movies, slasher flicks, psychological thrillers, etc. It took like five levels to get to a movie and for me it was too much.
At the base level I think you cannot go wrong with DVD/Video. I moved the web media to video but I may put it back as I have a little too many video folders.